WILMINGTON — The 2015 Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition is now open for submissions.

The Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition 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.

Thanks to a grant from the Post family, in 2014 the North Carolina Writers’ Network began offering the first-place winner $1,000, while the second- and third-place winners receive $300 and $200, respectively. The winning entry also will be considered for publication by Southern Cultures magazine.

The final judge is Jason Frye, a travel, culinary, and culture writer from Wilmington. After his first experience with North Carolina — a family vacation to the Outer Banks — he felt drawn to the state. He moved here in 2002 to attend UNC-Wilmington and pursue his master’s of fine arts in creative writing. After graduating in 2005, he stayed and began to explore the state through the lens of a poet, essayist, journalist, culinary critic and travel writer.

His work has appeared in print in crazyhorse, Our State magazine, the Official North Carolina Visitor Guide,The Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News & Observer, the StarNews, AAA Go!, and others; and his monthly column on the culture and nightlife in and around Wilmington appears monthly in Salt. Online, he has written for Our State Eats, Virgin Atlantic Airlines, VisitNC.com, Forbes and Moon.com. He has two travel guides — “Moon North Carolina” and “Moon North Carolina Coast” — in print through Avalon Travel Publishing, and a third — “Moon Road Trips: Blue Ridge Parkway” — will be released in spring 2015.

Pittsboro resident Laura Herbst won the 2014 Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition for her essay, “Breast Cancer: A Love Story.” Jason Hess of Wilmington won second place for his essay “The Adopted Person,” while Chapel Hill’s Joanna Catherine Scott won third place for her essay “How I Went to Adult Prison as a Child,” based on interviews with a prisoner in Central Prison.

The contest is administered by the University of North Carolina at Wilmington Department of Creative Writing, a community of passionate, dedicated writers who believe that the creation of art is a pursuit valuable to self and culture.

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.

Here are the complete guidelines:

• 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.
• 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: $10 for NCWN members, $12 for nonmembers.
• 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 submission 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.