The American Harp Journal Collegiate Writers Award

GUIDELINES

Thank you for your interest in participating in The American Harp Journal Collegiate Writers Award. The AHS has established this award with the intention of identifying and fostering young writers in our harp community. The AHS has established this award with the intention of identifying and fostering worthwhile scholarship from young writers in our harp community, with winning submissions to be published in the American Harp Journal.  Article submissions will be evaluated anonymously on the quality of writing and the significance of the content to the wider harp world. Criteria will include thoroughness of research, clarity of point of view, and the presentation of new and/or newly framed interpretations of issues and topics of concern to all harpists. 

Submissions should be emailed to AHJEditor@harpsociety.org and will be reviewed by members of The American Harp Journal Editorial Board. The decision of the judges is final.

The winning article will be:

• Published in the American Harp Journal
• Awarded a $500 prize
• Featured on both the AHS website and in the AHS emailed Newsletter.
• Publicized on the Society’s social media outlets.

Eligibility

Currently enrolled undergraduate and/or graduate students in an accredited collegiate institution are welcome to submit articles for consideration. 

Deadlines

Article submission deadline is May 1, 2025. Decisions will be announced no later than August 1, 2025.

Topics

Topics may include, but are not limited to: harp/music history, cultural history, organology, music theory, repertoire, ethnomusicology, literary criticism, performance medicine, biography, or the harp’s role in alternative music. Creative writing entries will not be considered.

Length

Eligible article submissions will be a maximum of 2500 words not including illustrations/examples, formatted as below:

Submission Formatting

• All submissions should be provided as a Microsoft Word document, Times New Roman 12 point font, double-spaced and sent to AHJEditor@harpsociety.org. The American Harp Journal follows the Chicago Manual of Style Guidelines. For stylistic issues related directly to music, see Writing About Music: A Style Sheet (3rd ed.) by D. Kern Holoman (UC Press, 2014).
• All direct and indirect references to outside sources should be properly cited using Chicago Manual of Style  (notes - bibliography). Easily verifiable general information should not be cited. Foreign language quotations should be translated and the translator credited.
• Pictures must be submitted electronically and MUST be high resolution, meaning a minimum of 300 dpi or 1800 x 1200 pixels for a 4 x 6 image. An image that seems clear enough on the internet might not be suitable for print. You must also have permission to use the image and include attribution.
• Musical examples. Musical examples are the responsibility of the writer, both for accuracy and permission. The same standards for resolution apply to musical examples. Musical examples should be referred to explicitly in the text in sequence (Fig. 1, Fig. 2 etc.) and should be labeled appropriately. Musical examples should be scanned as high-resolution bitmaps and saved as bitmaps (the extension is .bmp).

Queries

All questions concerning any of the above should be emailed to AHJEditor@harpsociety.org.