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TRAVELING: An Anthology of Award-Winning Poetry

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A frequent complaint made to the organizers of all well-established literary contests is that the same people keep winning the major cash prizes year after year after year. This is not entirely true, but like many popular misconceptions, there is a degree of verity in the statement. From experience as a Chief Judge for over fifteen years, I would say that if you examine the top three prize-winners of any prestigious writing contest, you will probably discover that at least two of these winners have won major prizes before--not necessarily in the same contest, but in similar contests.

To put it another way, only one entrant who has never won a major prize before, is usually represented in the top three award-winners. So what causes this imbalance? The reason is quite simple. Consistent prize-winners approach each contest in a professional manner. They don't rely on luck. If they themselves have not won a prize before in a particular contest, they will read up on the stories or poems that have won prizes in that contest in the past.

Sometimes previous winning entries are posted online and sometimes they are made available in anthologies like "Traveling".

If a writing contest offers an extremely rich purse for an extremely low entry fee, obviously the number of entries is going to be extremely high. It seems to me that it is worth while spending a little extra time and/or money studying previous entries favored by the judges. 99% of entrants don't bother to do this. They simply rely on luck. But a literary contest is not a lottery. The judges are always going to select winners that meet their established criteria. And that criteria can usually only be fully ascertained by examining previous winning entries, such as those published in "Traveling".