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Homer Competition Guidelines

About the Competition

The Homer competition is a low-commitment, high-reward competition aimed at students across the United States. The competition allows students to explore the humanities beyond regular school curriculum. All submissions are evaluated with a rubric through a multi-round process to ensure objective review. Our panel consists of professors and other educators.

If the competition does not have enough submissions, no winners will be announced.

We accept submissions in a wide variety of media. See below.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions must…

1. Be in one of the following formats: writing (typed or handwritten), video, drawing (digital or by hand), photo, painting, collage, song (recorded, sheet, or lyrics), poem, OR any mix of the aforementioned options.

   1. For any written submissions (excluding poems): be between 200 and 300 words; size

      12 Times New Roman, double spaced.

   2. For any recorded submissions: be under 2 minutes.

   3. For drawings, paintings, photos, and collages: contain 10 or fewer images.

   4. For sheet music: take under 2 minutes to perform (no need to do so, just as an estimate)

   5. For lyrics and poems: be between 5 and 15 stanzas

2. Be original work; no form of plagiarism is tolerated. Include citations when necessary. Citations are not counted in the final word count.
3. Address one of the two prompts in a creative manner.
4. Include a creative title.
5. Bear no name or identifying characteristic on the submission itself (for blind review purposes).

Other languages

We accept foreign language submissions, provided they are accompanied by an English translation. The translation must remain under 300 words or 15 stanzas, depending on the format of your piece. This translation is the only part of your submission that will be graded.

Our Rubric

Submissions are evaluated by our rubrics. We aim to be as fair as possible across the different mediums.

Performing Arts Submission Rubric