Winter Wheat is coming! We are now accepting proposals for our writing festival, to be held November 6-8, 2025, at Bowling Green State University.
What is Winter Wheat?
Winter Wheat has been a site of community and conversation for writers of all backgrounds—undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and community members. Our festival is free and open to the public with workshops focused on craft and generating new writing, as well as readings, a book fair, and an open mic on Saturday night for anyone who wants to read their work. In the past, the festival has included flash contests, DND sessions, and other unique experiences, which are traditions we hope to continue.
This year, Winter Wheat is celebrating its 25th year, and with this celebration, we hope to highlight all that the festival has done and continues to do to help writers thrive as a community. Much like our name implies, we hope to plant the seeds to produce writings for future harvest. Workshops are meant to spark creativity, get pen to paper, and leave you feeling energized to write in new ways. To read more about Winter Wheat, check out our staff member Garrett Miller’s personal essay here.
What are we looking for in proposals?
Winter Wheat’s workshops are generative in nature, but we are also excited about proposals that are collaborative, playful, informative, and unique! In 2024, we held workshops that walked through the Marine Lab, crafted DND character sheets, and cut up and carved out collage poetry. We want your workshop proposals for guiding writers through the publishing industry, but we also want to hear about that niche genre interest of yours focusing on ghost stories in space; your funky, weird thoughts about how to get through a plot hole or find the perfect word; or how to craft a character that’s convincing by meditation or goat yoga or eating too many Doritos.
We are accepting proposal submissions until September 24th which you can submit here, and all are invited to register up until October 3rd. If you have any questions, you can reach Hannah Goss, 2025 Winter Wheat Coordinator, at winterwheat@bgsu.edu. We hope to see you there!