Contest Entry Rules
The contest is free! Students may enter on their own, or through their school, or youth organization. We accept poems in English and Spanish.
River of Words Contest Rules & Guidelines
Please read the detailed instructions to our new submission process as many things have changed since last year.
1. All submissions are due by January 31, 2023 at 11:59pm after which the submission portal will close and no late submissions will be accepted for any reason. Winners will be announced Early April 2023. If you are a resident in Georgia or Arizona, please refer to the competition deadlines for your State Competition.
2. The contest is open to K–12th grade students, ages 5–19. Students must be enrolled in school to be eligible. All entries must be submitted by a parent, guardian, educator, or facilitator unless the student is 18 years old or older.
3. Participants may submit up to 5 entries for poetry and 5 entries for art (total of up to 10 entries). If more than 5 entries are submitted, we will only accept the first 5 as is. If multiple files or pieces of artwork are being submitted, then this form must be filled out once per submission.
4. All poems must be original work.
5. Poems should not exceed 32 lines in length (written) or 3 minutes (signed). For ASL poetry, please include a brief written summary of the poem’s content.
6. Collaborative poems and artwork are accepted, but only one student (chosen as the group representative) will be eligible for any prizes awarded.
7. At this time, we are able to accept poems only in English and Spanish.
8. We are going back to mail-in art submissions. Art must be mailed in order to be considered for the 2023 competition regardless of medium. If the art is a digital piece, please have it printed. Art will not be returned to the artist.
9. All artwork must be original work. Acceptable media are paint, pencil, markers, ink, crayon, chalk or pastel (fixed), photography, cloth, collage, and computer art.
10. Revisions will not be accepted. Please make sure your work is completed before submitting to the portal.
11. By submitting any work of any kind to River of Words, you are granting, on behalf of yourself and the student, to River of Words all rights in the work, including but not limited to the right to publish, reproduce, perform, distribute and to include the work in the River of Words annual anthology, on River of Words websites, or in any other publications deemed appropriate by River of Words. Works submitted to River of Words cannot be submitted for other publications or competitions.
12. Teacher and Group Submissions will only be accepted through this portal. We no longer accept submissions via Google or Dropbox. There is a new parental permission form to distribute in your classroom. Old parental permission forms will not be accepted.
13. Questions and concerns can be emailed to rowinfo@stmarys-ca.edu.
Privacy Notice
Introduction
The Saint Mary’s College of California Privacy Policy can be found here. The ROW Privacy Policy provides additional information specific to how ROW collects and uses personal information.
Children’s Privacy
The ROW website and information about ROW contests and activities is intended to be used by school teachers, facilitators, parents and legal guardians of school age children and is not intended to be used by children under the age of eighteen (18). If you are under the age of eighteen (18), please get your parent or legal guardian’s permission to use the site and enter our contests.
ROW will never intentionally collect Personal Data from persons under the age of eighteen (18) and we request that any forms or other submissions made in response to contests and activities be completed by a parent or legal guardian and not the child. If it appears that we have collected or received Personal Data on a child under the age of 18 without parental consent, it will not be used and we will promptly delete the information from our files.
Social Media
Our social media sites are not intended for the use of children under the age of eighteen (18). If you or your child choose to connect one or more of your social media accounts with our site to enable the sharing of Personal Data via social media platforms, certain categories of Personal Data relating to you from your social media account(s) will be shared with us.
How and Why we Collect Personal Data
As a general rule, we only collect data directly from you when you register for a ROW contest and we will use that data for the legitimate business interests of running our ROW contests.
Personal Data relating to Third Parties
By providing us with or allowing us to access Personal Data relating to individuals other than yourself, you are letting us know that you have the authority to send us that Personal Data or the authority to permit us to access those data in the manner described in this Privacy Policy.
What we use your Personal Data for (Purpose of Processing)
The following is a description, in a clear and plain manner, of what we use your Personal Data for and the corresponding legal ground(s) we rely on for doing so.
Please note that WHERE WE RELY ON YOUR CONSENT, THIS CAN BE WITHDRAWN AT WILL (See Special Note on Consent below).
| PURPOSE OF THE PROCESSING | CATEGORIES OF PERSONAL DATA | LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING |
|
To register you (if you are 18 or older) or your student for an ROW contest. |
Registration Data | Contractual necessity Legitimate interest |
|
To run our contest and manage our relationship with you or the contest entrant. |
Registration Data Contact Details |
Legitimate Interest |
Special Note on Consent
Where we cannot rely on a legal ground to process Personal Data (for example, our legitimate interests), we will process the Data on the basis of consent. When we rely on consent to process Personal Data, you have the right at any time to withdraw your consent by directly emailing us at rowinfo@stmarys-ca.edu.
Should you exercise the right to withdraw consent we will determine whether at that stage an alternative legal basis exists for processing. Where participant Personal Data has already been made public pursuant to contest process (for example, when a participant is named as a finalist in an anthology or on our website) withdrawn consent will not apply.
Accuracy of Personal Data
Reasonable efforts are made to keep any Personal Data we may hold about you up-to-date and as accurate as possible. You can check the information that we hold about you at any time by contacting us at rowinfo@stmarys-ca.edu. We will correct inaccurate data, and where required, delete data as necessary.
Direct Marketing
We only send mail, messages and other communications relating to marketing where we are authorized to do so at law. In most cases we rely on your consent to do so (especially where we use electronic communications). If, at any time, you no longer wish to receive direct marketing communications from us you can exercise this right by contacting us at rowinfo@stmarys-ca.edu.
Internet Communication
When data is transmitted across international borders we cannot be held responsible for actions or omissions done by you or any third party in connection with Personal Data transmissions that occur prior to our receiving the data including but not limited to transfers of Personal Data via technological means that may provide a lower level of protection (for example, WhatsApp, Skype, Dropbox etc.)
Sharing of Personal Data with other Categories of Recipients
Generally, Personal Data may be disclosed or shared as appropriate in the administration of ROW contests, with ROW administrators, judges, and members of the Saint Mary’s community. The Personal Data of contest finalists and winners may be shared with the public at large via our website, published anthologies, and ROW events.
Personal Data will never be shared with third parties for their marketing purposes (unless you give your consent thereto).
Retention Periods
Contest participants’ poetry and artwork (collectively “Works”) may be retained by ROW indefinitely. Personal Data identifying the participant Works is retained with the submitted Works and may therefore also be retained indefinitely. Some Works and Personal Data may also be catalogued for academic research and retained indefinitely for that purpose.
Where Works and Personal Data are no longer required by ROW, we will securely delete or the Personal Data in question.
European Union Contest Participants and Users of our Website
You may have the following rights related to the processing of your personal data:
- Right of Access to Personal Data
- Right to Rectify and Restrict the Use of Personal Data
- Right of Erasure (The Right to be Forgotten)
- Right of Portability
- Right to Object to Certain Processing
- Right to Lodge a Complaint
Time Limit for a Response
We try to reply to all legitimate requests within one month from receiving them. Last Updated August 28, 2019.