The Best in Rural Writing Contest has returned for 2026. The contest, organized by the rural writing collective The Milk House, welcomes both fiction and nonfiction submissions and hopes to showcase the best of rural stories from around the world.
Milk House Founder Ryan Dennis is a teacher living in Galway, Ireland, with deep roots and a passion for rural life. He details his own family history with the countryside in his most recent memoir, Barn Gothic: Three Generations and the Death of the Family Dairy Farm.
Part of his inspiration to begin The Milk House, and offer publishing opportunities to like-minded writers, was the indifference he faced when trying to get his own books published. After facing rejection from publishing houses in urban centers, he wanted to prove that there is an audience for–and real literary merit in–rural stories. “For those who aren’t from what’s conceived as a literary center like New York,” Dennis said, “I think ‘a chip on your shoulder’ is a pretty good description of the feeling sometimes.”
And while his writing career has been deeply tied to his experience in the countryside, the contest he helps organize is a way to showcase just how textured and varied rural life can be. “One of the reasons that I enjoy working at The Milk House is that I get to step out of the way and allow other people to speak for themselves,” he told the Daily Yonder. “The guiding principle is just strong writing.”
Submissions are welcome up to 7,000 words, and though the guidelines require some connection to rural places, “the manner and extent to which this is done is open to the author and not necessarily limited to rural characters or rural topics.”
This year’s judge is Will Weaver, the prolific Minnesota-born novelist of rural life. Most famous of his works is Red Earth, White Earth, a novel that examines a rural homecoming and tribal conflict on Minnesota farmland. These sorts of stories make Weaver the perfect judge for a contest that wants to highlight rural narratives in all their different forms and personalities, from memories of baseball in Wyoming to the verdant Alabama spring.
Winning writers in the contest do not just win a cash prize; they get published in The Milk House’s annual anthology. The writing collective just released their collection featuring last year’s winners, 2026 Best in Rural Writing: Selected Fiction and Creative Nonfiction. Edited by Dennis and Samantha Rogers, the collection showcases essays and short stories from rural writers around the world. In his introduction to the volume, Dennis suggests that there is something ineffable which connects people from the countryside across borders and language: “independence, solitude, and their relationship to the land itself.”
The broad scope of the anthology, writers stretching from New Zealand to Ireland, challenges readers to complicate their imagination of the countryside. Dairy farmers in Minnesota, yes, but also a high school English teacher in Vermont and a wannabe cowboy in Cork. “By everyone sharing their experiences,” Dennis said, “it helps create a fuller picture for all the rest of us.”
Contest submissions are open now, and close September 1st.
The post Submissions Are Open for the 2026 Best in Rural Writing Contest appeared first on The Daily Yonder.
