For eight continous years, since the Viet Bao Daily News, a Vietnamese Media Network, launch its first writing contest for Vietnamese-Americans to write about their experiences and journey to assimilate in American society, we have received thousands of stories under various genres: in the forms of letter, narrative, journal entry, report, memoir, and essay.

With over 100,000 daily readers worldwide, many have supported this idea from the beginning and continue to advocate for its success. More than 9,000 writers have submitted their stories. Over 2,000 of these were selected to publish on the daily newspapers for the past years. Many of whom composed their stories in flats and apartments outside the United States, including Vietnam.

The annual prizes have increased over the years. From the annual $25,000 awards received by various contestants, the Viet Bao is proud to announce that this year's awards have gone up to $40,000. From the initial intention to preserve the Vietnamese language and cultural values, the writing contest has spreaded and exceeded beyond anybody's expectation. The anthology became more than just a compilation of shared, collective philosophical values; but bear marks of historical values. Now stepping into its eighth year, "The Writing on America Awards" goes beyond the linguistic boundary and accepts entries in English. To be eligible for the awards, all writings should be sent in on or before May 30th, 2008.

Awards: Selected stories will be published on the Viet Bao Daily News, Viet Bao online and the 2008 Writing on America anthology. Winners will be awarded at the Annual Writing On America Reception. A total of $40,000 cash prizes will be given to winners including the 1st prize of $10,000 cash.

The requirement for the essay is at least 2 pages (no double space please !!). The essay must be written in English. It can be anything in life, your own experience about something, a significant event that changed your life or someone you know, or just an everyday life story. The only thing that we ask for is all the stories have to have something to do with the Vietnamese Culture. You can submit multiple essays, the contest does not have any limits to the number of essay entries. However, Vietbao does not guarantee that they will run public all of the entries, just screened and qualified essays only. The grand prize is $10,000 out of the $40,000 total prize amount. The other prizes and amounts will be determine later by the judges as the contest goes on. Good luck, have fun and all the best to all contestants!

Vietbao Daily News Inc.