Colonel Darron L. Wright Award

Thanks to a generous donation from the Blake and Bailey Family Fund, Line of Advance is presenting the eighth annual Colonel Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards. Like us, Darron Wright was a soldier: a larger than life infantry commander with several tours under his belt. And also like us, Col. Wright was a writer: a thoughtful, reflective artist, who was eager to tell the truth about his men with compassion and a commander's eye. He was killed in a September 2013 parachute training accident. Col. Wright was the author of a 2012 memoir Iraq Full Circle: From Shock and Awe to the Last Combat Patrol in Baghdad and Beyond. This award is presented in his name in an effort to honor his memory. 

Since 2016, the Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards have annually recognized excellence in prose (includes fiction, non-fiction, and hybrid forms) and poetry by U.S. military service members and veterans. In 2020, organizers announced additional prose and poetry categories for immediate family members of U.S. military service members and veterans.

Cash prizes of $250, $150, and $100 are available in each “service member/veteran” and “family” group, for a total of four categories. The submission window will be open on our submittable page from April 1st to June 30th, 2023. SUBMIT HERE for the 2023 Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards.

This year’s guest judge is Benjamin Inks, author of the upcoming book of short stories entitled Soft Targets soon to be published by Double Dagger. A Purple Heart recipient, Benjamin served three years in the Army and has worked an odd array of jobs—private investigator, personal trainer, peer support at a psychiatric crisis center. So far, the highlight of his résumé was teaching literature as a grad student at George Mason University. His 11-story collection, Soft Targets, explores war, the bonds formed during war, and how the stories we tell about war shape our trajectory. Centered around themes of woundedness and vulnerability, most stories are fictionalized accounts of his time in Afghanistan.   

Follow him on Instagram @Inks__Thinks