Wow! Literary Award invites writers and poets working in literature, speculative fiction/sci-fi, experimental poetry, and philosophy to submit original, unpublished creative work that reflects and expands on the SETI Institute’s “Intelligence and Consciousness” research area, exploring the questions:
- What may interspecies communication entail?
- What is the nature of consciousness?
- What is the nature and evolution of intelligence?
We suggest that writers and poets familiarize themselves with the SETI Institute’s research. The jury will pay attention to a strong connection to the SETI Institute’s scientific work as well as innovation in creative expression.
The Wow! Literary Award comes with a $1,000 award and publication on the SETI Institute’s website. The SETI AIR team will award three honorable mentions with $100 and a profile in the SETI AIR Newsletter.
Contest Rules
- Participating writers can be any age but must not have published a full-length book (chapbooks are fine). All entrants must be willing to provide proof of their publication history if requested.
- Open to US, Canadian, and international writers. Submissions must be in English.
- One submission per participant.
- Entry fee: no entry fee required.
- Deadline for all contest entries: Thursday, September 10, 2026 at 11:59 pm PDT.
- Your submission may consist of suites of texts up to the prescribed limits: poetry submissions must not exceed 80 lines total (stanza breaks DO NOT count as lines, nor do titles or subheadings); prose submissions up to 2000 words); and visual poetry submissions up to 8 pages. Submissions that exceed these limits will not be accepted.
- Do not identify yourself anywhere in your attachment. Enter your name and address information on a cover page. In the document header, please enter the title(s) of your piece(s) and word or line or page count.
- Your entry must be formatted on 8 1/2″ x 11″ using a neutral 12-point font (Times New Roman preferred): (poetry) use single spacing (prose) use double spacing.
- Entries must be sent in .doc or .docx format and emailed to [email protected]. Please do not send your work as a pdf.
- Winners of the 2026 Wow! Literary Award will be notified by email, and results will be available in the SETI newsletter.
- Each piece must be original, unpublished, not submitted elsewhere for publication or broadcast, nor accepted elsewhere for publication or broadcast, nor entered simultaneously in any other contest or competition for which it is also eligible to win a prize.
Residency Advisors
Gregory Betts, Cosmic Consciousness Residency Advisor
Bettina Forget, Director, SETI AIR Program
For more information about the SETI AIR program, please visit: https://www.seti.org/air/
){kind=logo}
