Poetry, CNF, and Graphic Essays.

So good you can taste it.

General Submissions

General submissions are open May 1st through June 30th for CNF and Poetry. Graphic Essays are open year round.


Sweet does not accept AI generated writing or art at this time.

Ella Shively

Cal Freeman

Michael Akuchie

Sierra Hixon

Sher Ting Chim

Chloe Hanson

Josh Luckenbach

Gwenyth Wheat

Jonathan Fletcher

Brian Czyzyk

Click here to see the Winner, Runners Up and the Finalists from the 2026 Poetry Contest.

Click here to see the Winner and Finalists from the 2025 Karen Kao Creative Nonfiction Flash Essay Contest.

Click here to see the Winner, Runners Up and the Finalists from the 2025 Poetry Contest.

Winner

Judge's Comments:

First Place: Linda Dove – “Scheherazade Finishes”

“Scheherazade Finishes” brilliantly maps the classic storyteller’s endless yarn onto our own daily lives. Just as the doomed bride-to-be staves off her fate each day by inventing another cliffhanger, we too save ourselves with the stories we tell. Every day’s to-do list is a talisman against death as we try to make it to tomorrow, where love might live. This is a poem to know by heart, and recite on one of those long nights.

Runners Up

Finalists

Sweet Connections: Lori Barrett

Several times a month we connect with our contributors showing where they have been, where they are now, and what’s up for the future. Name:...

Women in Tampa Talking About Alligators by Heather Sellers

In April, during a graduate nonfiction class at the University of South Florida, you instructed your students to bring a copy of their final essays to class. Towards the end of the session, after we read the drafts of our essays excruciatingly slowly to each other in pairs, you instructed us to slice and dice our work — to cross out words, phrases, and even paragraphs that didn’t move our pieces forward. I bring this up to say that it is clear Women in Tampa Talking About Alligators has been painstakingly edited. It is concise. Its words and the arrangement of them matter. You practice what you preach, which is beyond admirable.

Interviews

Remembering Karen Kao: Frans Verhagen

Interview with Karen Kao’s husband, Frans Verhagen​ CS: Do you have a story that comes to mind when thinking about what the writing process meant...

Featured Piece

Jim Ross

A Listener He showed up for the first time on the second Friday of November, a fair to cloudy day that reached 60 degrees.  None...

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Announcements

2026 SWEET POETRY CONTEST RESULTS

SWEET POETRY CONTEST 2026 RESULTS “A Duplex for Nerve Root Signature”—Sarah Carey So much skill in this beautiful poem! The duplex form is difficult to master,...

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Contests

Karen Kao Flash Contest Results 2025

The editors of Sweet are so pleased to announce the winner for 2025 Karen Kao Creative Nonfiction Flash Essay contest. Winner Kimberly Kearns for "The...

Flash Contest Results 2024

We apologize for the delay in announcing the winners of this contest. While notifying the winners, we learned that our winner, Karen Kao passed...

Poetry Contest Results 2023

Sweet is thrilled to announce the results of our 2023 Poetry Contest! Judge Andrew Grace has selected the top three poems below of the ten...

More to read
pieces from past issues

Poetry

Gabriel Blackmann

Akiva Savett

Tom Kelly

Lina Patton

Rebecca Brock

Diane LeBlanc

Bethany Jarmul

Jeanine Walker

CNF

Graphic Essays

Nance VanWinckel

Mary Collins

Mary Collins

Bethany Jarmul

Gregg Williard

Ciera McElroy

Karen Donovan

Amy Wright