“What will / our daughter / be able / to plant / in this / paradise of / fugitive dust,” wrote poet and former Guest Judge Craig Santos Perez. The planet may be in crisis, dear writers, but we must consider what we want to plant. Will we sow seeds of change? Or will we use our roots to hold strong to the earth? This month, Write the World and Patagonia ask you to sit with despair and hope, dust and paradise. Write a piece of creative nonfiction—a genre that blends fact with storytelling, using rich description, reflection, and literary technique to explore real-world experiences—about your own environment, close to home, while connecting it to the larger forces shaping our planet’s future. Whether your backyard borders a desert, forest, highway, or ocean, it remains an integral piece of Earth’s vast ecosystem, from the soil’s microbiome to the upper climbs of our shared atmosphere.

**PRIZES** 

Winner will receive $100. Runner-Up and Best Peer Review will each receive $50.