In collaboration with Humanities Tennessee, Austin Peay State University is the proud home of the Tennessee Young Writers' Workshop. The Tennessee Young Writers' Workshop provides high school students ages 14-18 with a unique overnight summer camp experience focused on creative writing.

This year's camp will be hosted at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee from June 21-27, 2026. Students will spend the week on campus, enjoy evening activities and events, and learn from engaging, professional instructors who will lead workshops in a wide variety of creative writing styles and genres, all while interacting with peers who share the same passions and goals. The summer camp vibe will also include various summer camp activities (poetry line friendship bracelets! tie-dye!) in addition to writing workshops.

Applications are awarded acceptance on a competitive basis, and students are required to submit a creative writing sample. Additionally, students must be between the ages of 14-18 during the time of summer camp; no exceptions will be made to the age requirements.

The fee for this year's camp is TBA. Financial assistance is available and will be decided upon acceptance. The need for financial assistance does not factor into the acceptance decision.

MEMORY is the theme of this year’s festival. We invite proposals for papers, panels, workshops, and creative readings that explore memory as personal experience, collective history, cultural archive, and political force.

This year, festival attendees have the opportunity to attend craft talks and readings led by professional writers, participate in generative writing workshops, attend informational panels on writing and the writing industry, and meet with APSU creative writing faculty.

Suggested Topics:

• Craft Talks
• Conversations on Personal & Collective Histories
• Workshops on Genre, Style, & Form
• Insight to the Writing/Publishing Industry/Digital Publishing 
• Writing in and out of Academia
• Self/Indie Publishing and Marketing
• Writing Pedagogy
• Literature & Memory
• Multimodal Essays
• Tabletop Gaming
• And more!

Submission Guidelines: 

Please include a 300-word proposal—indicating either virtual or in-person—and a 150-word proposer bio with a headshot.

Selected proposals will be announced on February 20, 2026. 

Entries that do not follow the above guidelines will not be considered. If you have any questions about the festival, please reach out to Joey Grisham (she/her) at grishamj@apsu.edu.

Guidelines

• We welcome submissions in a variety of aesthetics from both emerging and established writers. 
• We accept simultaneous submissions, but if your work is accepted elsewhere, please notify us through Submittable immediately.
• Please submit one traditional length essay (up to 3,000 words) or one to three flash pieces (500-1,500 words each).
• We do not accept AI-generated submissions.
• We have instituted a submission cap for our reading periods. We are currently accepting only 100 submissions per genre.
• If your work is accepted for publication, you grant Zone 3 First North American serial rights and non-exclusive reprint rights. You also grant Zone 3 the right to display the work or a portion of the work on our website, in its marketing or promotion of the work, and within Zone 3 publications. All other rights remain yours as the sole owner of the work, including the right to offer the work for subsequent publication in a literary anthology. 

Our reading period for Volume 40.1 opens August 15, 2025, and will close November 1, 2025. We make every effort to respond to all submissions within six months of receiving them. 

We look forward to reading your work!

Guidelines

• We welcome submissions in a variety of aesthetics from both emerging and established writers. 
• We accept simultaneous submissions, but if your work is accepted elsewhere, please notify us through Submittable immediately.
• Please submit no more than one story (3,000 words max) during this submission period. We will consider novel excerpts and flash pieces.
• We do not accept AI-generated submissions.
• We have instituted a submission cap for our reading periods. We are currently accepting only 100 submissions per genre.
• If your work is accepted for publication, you grant Zone 3 First North American serial rights and non-exclusive reprint rights. You also grant Zone 3 the right to display the work or a portion of the work on our website, in its marketing or promotion of the work, and within Zone 3 publications. All other rights remain yours as the sole owner of the work, including the right to offer the work for subsequent publication in a literary anthology.

Our reading period for Volume 40.1 opens August 15, 2025, and will close November 1, 2025. We make every effort to respond to all submissions within six months of receiving them. 

Send us your best story. We look forward to reading your work!

Guidelines

• We welcome submissions in a variety of aesthetics from both emerging and established writers.
• We accept simultaneous submissions, but if your work is accepted elsewhere, please notify us through Submittable immediately.
• Please submit no more than six poems during this submission period.
• We do not accept AI-generated submissions.
• We have instituted a submission cap for our reading periods. We are currently accepting only 100 submissions per genre.
• If your work is accepted for publication, you grant Zone 3 First North American serial rights and non-exclusive reprint rights. You also grant Zone 3 the right to display the work or a portion of the work on our website, in its marketing or promotion of the work, and within Zone 3 publications. All other rights remain yours as the sole owner of the work, including the right to offer the work for subsequent publication in a literary anthology.

Our reading period for Volume 40.1 opens August 15, 2025, and will close November 1, 2025. We make every effort to respond to all submissions within six months of receiving them. 

We look forward to reading your work!