Sponsored by Jim Kosmo • DCTC Bookstore • Creative Arts and Writing Club
Are you a student at Dakota County Technical College? Are you a writer? Are you sick and tired of receiving scholarships at every turn?
If you answered “yes” to the first two questions and “no” to the third, then you should submit your finest work of fiction or nonfiction to the DCTC Student Writing Competition.
The writing competition opened February 14, 2018, aka Valentine’s Day, and the submission deadline is Wednesday, March 21, 2018. The competition is open to all current DCTC students. The competition is sponsored by award-winning author, Jim Kosmo, the DCTC Bookstore and the Creative Arts and Writing Club.
DCTC Student Writing Competition
Prizes & Guidelines
- First place: $300 scholarship
- Second place: $200 scholarship
- Third place: $100 scholarship
All prizewinners will also receive a $50 DCTC Bookstore voucher.
Submit your work as an attachment to:
storycontest@dctc.eduSubmissions can be works of fiction or nonfiction.
Word count limits: 500 – 3,000 words
Story should show personal growth.Submission deadline: Wednesday, March 21, 2018.
Must be a current DCTC student to be eligible.Note: Do NOT include contact information on your submission document.
The competition is sponsored by Jim Kosmo, the DCTC Bookstore and the Creative Arts and Writing Club.
More about award-winning author, Jim Kosmo…
In 2010, Captain Jim Kosmo retired as a Mississippi riverboat pilot and partner with the Padelford Riverboats Co., of Saint Paul, Minnesota, to spend more time writing and 
working with new authors through his company, Author’s Advocates, LLC. He wrote the national-award-winning Still Standing: The Story of SSG John Kriesel and helped Lieutenant Colonel Mark Weber self-publish Tell My Sons, which was then acquired by Random House Publishing.
Kosmo is past president of the Rotary Club of Saint Paul, member of the Minnesota National Guard Senior Advisory Task Force, and former mayor of Bayport, Minnesota. He spent twenty years as a newspaper reporter and editor and as a public relations manager in Minneapolis and Chicago. After joining the family riverboat business in 1980 as president, he was licensed by the US Coast Guard to operate hundred-ton commercial passenger vessels as a US Merchant Marine officer.
Kosmo and his wife, Shelley, have a blended family of eight adult children and twelve grandchildren. He resides in Bayport.
— Courtesy of Jim Kosmo
Visit Jim Kosmo to learn more about this Minnesota author and his books, including Monsters in the Hallway and Still Standing.
Writing competition judges
- Jim Kosmo
- Wes Jorde
- Joe Campbell
- Chris Hayes
For more information about the DCTC Student Writing Competition and the Creative Arts and Writing Club, contact:
Wes Jorde
Philosophy Faculty
Creative Arts and Writing Club Faculty Co-Advisor
651-423-8054
Joe Campbell
English Faculty
Creative Arts and Writing Club Faculty Co-Advisor
651-423-8452
