Submit Your Story – On This Land 2024

Sunset at Waldo Lake, Willamette National Forest

The land is full of stories. Since time before letters and alphabets, people have captured our connections to place through storytelling. We’ve gathered together in every culture spanning the globe to listen, celebrate, and learn. Today, we find comfort in the words of poets, the lyrics of musicians, and the thoughtful reflections of writers who draw us in and imprint their unique reflections upon us.

On This Land is an annual invitation to explore your own connection with place. From a childhood backyard, lands far away, our memories are housed in landscapes. This winter, we invite you to reflect upon and share your connection to place through our winter writers series.

This series is for poems, essays, and short stories. Generally, essays are below 1,000 words, and short stories remain below 10,000. We encourage writers to submit poems or stories they could read to an audience in no more than 8-10 minutes.

This years On This Land reading event will take place the first week of March. If you would like to be considered for our public reading, please submit your work by midnight on Sunday, February 11th. Artists are welcome to submit more than one piece. 

Aside from the public reading, this collection of letters, poems, and stories may be shared publicly. You can opt out of having your story shared as a part of the larger project below.

Submission Form

UO students write in nature at Green Island in the fall