The Gilded Age, the HBO television series created by Julian Fellowes, chronicles the lives of a cast of characters living in 1880s New York City, including servants and maids living and working in the garden-level quarters of brownstone mansions, wealthy inhabitants of Manhattan from both old and new money, and Black families living in Brooklyn who reach levels of affluence in the post-Reconstruction period. Together, the characters create a layered portrait of a city where diverse classes come into often conflicted interaction. Write a personal essay that examines your own class status, reflecting on how it manifests in your encounters in society with friends, coworkers, family, and others. How have financial matters evolved through past generations in your family to bring you to where you are today?
Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.