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The winners of the 2026 Spring Writing Contests have been selected by seven judges, who awarded $8,750 to 10 student-writers. Rising 3rd-year MFA student Matti Ben-Lev, who is concentrating in nonfiction, took the top prize in three categories: the Rinehart Nonfiction Award, the Rinehart Poetry Award, and the Mark Craver- Virginia Downs Poetry Award.

2026 Spring Writing Contests Judges Announced. Seven writers sign on to judge seven contests as part of George Mason University's annual celebration of creative writing.

Grace Wood, a BFA candidate graduating in 2026, was named Senior of the Year by the College of Humanities and Social Science in November 2025.

Upstart Crow is a literary podcast affiliated with Watershed Lit Radio. We recently got the chance to interview the hosts, William Miller, Ken Budd, and Jennifer Disano.

The Incarcerated Writers Project (IWP) is an initiative of phoebe journal to provide feedback to creative writers who are incarcerated. Maya Gudapati and Katey Funderburgh, the current co-coordinators of IWP, discuss their work and experience with the organization.  

George Mason University’s Creative Writing Program joins Watershed Lit and Mason’s University Libraries in presenting the Spring 2026 Visiting Writers Series.

Holly Mason Badra, MFA ’17 and now Associate Director of Women and Gender Studies, recently published Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora (University of Arkansas Press).

BookRiot reviewer Lydia Manusos featured Stillhouse Press's Fall 2025 publication, TELL ME YOURS I'LL TELL YOU MINE by Kristina Ten, in a list of knockout horror short story collections. "I am absolutely feral for the story “The Dizzy Room,” originally published in Nightmare Magazine, but any story Ten writes is a winner. Her work is unsettling, nostalgic, elegiac, and poetic. It’s the perfect eerie read for settling in by a fire with a hot drink" said Manusos.