Colonel Darron L. Wright Award
Thanks to a generous donation from the Blake and Bailey Family Fund, Line of Advance is presenting the 2025 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 May 1st to July 4th, 2025. SUBMIT HERE for the 2025 Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards. LOA reserves the right to request proof of military service/connection.
The guest judge for the 10th Annual Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards credits the competition for inspiring and launching her career as a published author, as well as providing her a network of support from fellow writers and veterans.
Jillian Danback-McGhan is a U.S. Navy veteran, and a 2006 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. After winning the veterans' prose category in the 2020 Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards, she went on to author "Midwatch," a collection of genre-defying short fiction published in 2024 by Split/Lip Press, Omaha. In tales ranging from the ghostly fantastic to the gritty realistic, Danback-McGhan's gripping sea stories navigate oft-ignored aspects of modern military life, including shipboard politics and sexual predators.
"It isn’t an exaggeration to say the Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards are the reason that I’m a writer," says Danback-McGhan. "I had enjoyed reading the award-winning stories and poems first published by the Line of Advance literary journal as early as 2017. What impressed me is how this competition showcased the richness of perspectives from veterans and military families. Writers spanned multiple conflicts, styles of writing, and branches of service. Reading these stories and poems felt like watching a band at a small venue, knowing that one day they would strike it big."
"Submitting to the Wright Awards seemed a welcoming first step," says Danback-McGhan. "Being in the company of writers whose work I admired made this competition feel less intimidating than others. As luck would have it, my short story, 'Farragut Square,' was one of that year’s winning entries. It was my first-ever publication."
"Winning in the Wright Awards gave me the encouragement I needed to continue writing," she says. "It also connected me with the wider veteran and military writing community that continues to support and sustain me to this day."
"Our Best War Stories, an anthology collecting the first 5 years of Col. Darron L. Wright contest prize-winners and finalists, was published in 2020 by Middle West Press LLC. Later this year, a second volume of "Our Best War Stories" is planned for publication. The volume will include this year's contest winners.
Line of Advance is so proud to have people within our orbit become successful. It’s the coolest thing. Former winners, friends, and sometime-guest-judges that have gone on to publish novels, collections of short-fiction and poetry, and other works are:
• Dewaine Farria: "Revolutions of All Colors: A Novel" (Syracuse University Press, 2020)
• Ray McPadden, "We March at Midnight: A War Memoir" (Blackstone Publishing, 2021)
• Travis Klempan: "Hills Hide Mountains" (MilSpeak Books, 2024) and "Have Snakes, Need Birds" (Koehler Books, 2020).
• Ryan Stovall, Black Snowflakes Smothering A Torch: How to Talk to Your Veteran - a Primer (Woodhall Press, 2022)
• Ben Weakley, "Heat + Pressure: Poems from War" (Middle West Press, 2022)
• Eric Chandler "Kekekabic" (Finishing Line Press, 2022)
• Benjamin Inks, "Soft Targets" (Double Dagger, 2023)
• Lisa Stice, "Letters from Conflict: Poems" (Middle West Press, 2024)