The Bakersfield College Writing Center is hosting a creative writing contest this semester, and the deadline for entries is approaching quickly.

The topic of the contest is “the future.” Entries are allowed to be about any time in the future as long as it pertains to the future. Each student is allowed only one entry.

Students who want to enter in the contest must submit their entries by noon on May 1 in the BC Writing Center. The Writing Center has been accepting entries since February.

Kristen Watts, the instructional assistant in the writing lab and the person in charge of the contest, said, “Only a handful of people have turned it in. People tend to wait until the last minute.”

The contest has been going on for about three years now. It used to be a monthly contest, but since Watts has taken over the contest, it has been a single contest for each semester. Watts asserts that it gives the writers more time to think and create exactly what they want.

“I want to get students to try, and I want creative writing to be a bigger part of the BC community,” said Watts.

The Writing Center will be accepting short stories, poetry, dramatic works, and prose for the contest. The maximum word count for the entries is 1,000.

There will be a first, second, and third place. All three places will have their work published in the Fall 2015 edition of The Roughneck Review. First place will win a gift bag with gift cards, a T-shirt and more.

Entries must have the students’ ID number and contact phone number on the entry. The students’ name must not be included on the paper as it is an anonymous entry. Submissions by email are not accepted.

A three-person committee will judge the entries. These judges are all going to be people that are in the BC community.

The criteria for the judging are whether the story is engaging, the quality of the plot and development, use of descriptive elements, good grammar, and good mechanics.

Feedback will not be given back on any of the submissions.

Winners will be announced through the BC Writing Center’s Facebook page.