“I just thought we were the most privileged group of people who ever lived,” longtime columnist Rose Post once said of her years working for the Salisbury Post. “And I pinched myself all the time that I got paid for doing what I did, because I was having such a good time.”
In this spirit, the North Carolina Writers’ Network offers the 2014 Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition. This contest encourages the creation of lasting nonfiction that is outside the realm of conventional journalism and has relevance to North Carolinians. Subjects may include traditional categories such as reviews, travel articles, profiles or interviews, place/history pieces or culture criticism.
The first-, second- and third-place winners of the 2014 Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition will receive $300, $200, and $100 respectively. The winning entry will be considered for publication by Southern Cultures magazine.
The final judge is Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, whose novella “The Man Who Danced with Dolls” won a 2013 Whiting Writers’ Award of $50,000, one of the richest prizes in American literature. She holds an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where she now teaches in the English department.
Rose Post worked for the Salisbury Post for 56 years as a reporter, feature writer and columnist. She won numerous state and national awards for her writing and earned the N.C. Press Women’s top annual award four times. She received the O. Henry Award from the Associated Press three times, the Pete Ivey Award and the School Bell Award for educational coverage. Nationally, she won the 1989 Ernie Pyle Award, the Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award for human-interest writing, and the 1994 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ Award.
The competition is open to any writer who is a legal resident of North Carolina or a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network.
The postmark deadline is Jan. 17, 2014. The entry fee is $10 for NCWN members, $12 for nonmembers.
Entries can be submitted in one of two ways: Send two printed copies through the U.S. Postal Service (see guidelines and address below), along with a check for the appropriate fee, made payable to the North Carolina Writers’ Network.
Submit an electronic copy online at http://ncwriters.submittable.com, and pay by VISA or MasterCard.
Each entry must be an original and previously unpublished manuscript of no more than 2,000 words, typed in a 12-point standard font (i.e., Times New Roman) and double-spaced.
Author’s name should not appear on manuscript. Instead, include a separate cover sheet with name, address, phone number, e-mail address, word count and manuscript title. If submitting electronically, page 1 should be your cover sheet.
An entry fee must accompany the manuscript. Multiple submissions are accepted, one manuscript per entry fee. You may pay the member entry fee if you join the NCWN with your submission. Checks should be made payable to the North Carolina Writers’ Network.
Entries will not be returned. Winners will be announced in March.
Send printed submissions to: North Carolina Writers’ Network, ATTN: Rose Post, PO Box 21591, Winston-Salem, NC 27120
The nonprofit North Carolina Writers’ Network is the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to writers at all stages of development. For additional information, visit www.ncwriters.org.