Charlotte Lit is excited to announce the launch of our annual Writers/South Awards, with prizes totaling $10,000!
Writers from North Carolina and its border states — Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia — are invited to enter their work in four categories: poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and flash. All winners and honorable mentions will be published in Writers/South: Journal of Charlotte Lit in the spring. The contest is open September 1 – December 1. Winners will be announced on March 1, 2022 and the journal will be published on May 1, 2022.
Categories & Prizes
Poetry: 1-3 poems, up to five pages
Fiction: up to 4000 words
Nonfiction: up to 4000 words
Flash (fiction or nonfiction): 1-2 pieces, up to 500 words each
1st: $1,500 and publication
2nd: $500 and publication
3rd: $250 and publication
Honorable Mentions: $50 and publication
2022 Judges
FICTION: RON RASH
Ron Rash is the author of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner finalist and New York Times bestseller Serena and Above the Waterfall, in addition to four prizewinning novels, including The Cove, One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight; four collections of poems; and six collections of stories, among them Burning Bright, which won the 2010 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and Chemistry and Other Stories, which was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award. Twice the recipient of the O. Henry Prize, he teaches at Western Carolina University.
NONFICTION: STEPHANIE ELIZONDO GRIEST
Stephanie Elizondo Griest is a globetrotting author from the Texas/Mexico borderlands. Her five books include Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana; Mexican Enough; and All the Agents & Saints. She has also written for the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Travel + Leisure, VQR, The Believer, and Oxford American. Among her honors are a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton, a Henry Luce Scholarship to China, and a Margolis Award for Social Justice Reporting. Currently Associate Professor of Creative Nonfiction at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, she has performed as a Moth storyteller. Visit her website at www.StephanieElizondoGriest.com.
POETRY: NICKOLE BROWN & JESSICA JACOBS
Nickole Brown is the author of Sister and Fanny Says. She lives with her wife, poet Jessica Jacobs, in Asheville where she periodically volunteers at three different animal sanctuaries. She writes about these animals, resisting the kind of pastorals that made her (and many of the working-class folks from the Kentucky that raised her) feel shut out of nature. Her work speaks in a queer, Southern-trash-talking way about nature beautiful, damaged, and in desperate need of saving. To Those Who Were Our First Gods won the 2018 Rattle Chapbook Prize, and her essay-in-poems, The Donkey Elegies, was published in 2020.
Jessica Jacobs is the author of Take Me with You, Wherever You’re Going (Four Way Books), one of Library Journal’s Best Poetry Books of the Year, winner of the Goldie Award in Poetry from the Golden Crown Literary Society, and a finalist for both the Brockman-Campbell and Julie Suk Book Awards. Her debut collection, Pelvis with Distance (White Pine Press), a biography-in-poems of Georgia O’Keeffe, won the New Mexico Book Award in Poetry and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and Julie Suk Award. An avid long-distance runner, Jessica has worked as a rock-climbing instructor, bartender, and professor, and now serves as the Chapbook Editor for Beloit Poetry Journal. She lives in Asheville, NC, with her wife, the poet Nickole Brown, with whom she co-authored Write It! 100 Poetry Prompts to Inspire (Spruce Books/PenguinRandomHouse), and is at work on parallel collections of essays and poems exploring spirituality, Torah, and Midrash. You can learn more about her at jessicalgjacobs.com.
FLASH: TARA CAMPBELL
Tara Campbell is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse. She received her MFA from American University, and teaches creative writing at American University, The Writer’s Center, Barrelhouse, Politics & Prose, Catapult, and The National Gallery of Art. Her work has earned multiple fellowships and awards from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Previous publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Wigleaf, Jellyfish Review, Booth, Strange Horizons, and CRAFT Literary. Campbell is also the author of a novel, TreeVolution, and four collections: Circe’s Bicycle, Midnight at the Organporium, Political AF: A Rage Collection, and Cabinet of Wrath: A Doll Collection. Connect with her at www.taracampbell.com or on Twitter: @TaraCampbellCom or IG: @thetreevolution
Publication
All prize-winning entries including honorable mentions will be published in the Spring 2022 issue of Writers/South: Journal of Charlotte Lit, alongside the works of our judges, Ron Rash, Jessica Jacobs, Nickole Brown, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, and Tara Campbell.
Submission Guidelines & Eligibility
Welcome to Writers/South, the journal and publishing imprint of Charlotte Lit.
Our annual Writers/South awards has $10,000 in prizes, plus publication in the Spring 2022 edition of Writers/South: Journal of Charlotte Lit, in both print and online editions.
- Categories: poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, and flash.
- Prizes (in each category): $1,500 for first, $500 for second, and $250 for third, plus publication. Honorable mentions: $50 and publication.
- Eligibility: open to current and past residents of North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia.
- What to Submit:
- Poetry: submit 1 to 3 poems in a single file, up to 5 pages total, any style or subject.
- Fiction: submit 1 piece of up to 4,000 words, any style or subject.
- Creative Nonfiction: submit 1 piece of up to 4,000 words, any style (e.g., memoir, personal essay, nature writing) or subject.
- Flash: submit 1 to 2 pieces, up to 500 words apiece, fiction or nonfiction, any style.
- How to Submit: through our online portal only. Mailed or emailed submissions will not be considered.
- Pre-Screening: the editors will perform the initial screening of entries before sending finalists in each category to the contest judges.
- Concealed Judging: The contest will be judged anonymously. Submission documents should not include identifying information.
- Previous Publication: Entries should be previously unpublished in any media including blogs and social media.
- Entry Fee: $15 for each submission. All U.S. entrants will receive a print copy of Writers/South: Journal of Charlotte Lit. International entrants will receive a PDF copy. We will waive the submission fee for anyone with financial need. Please email us for further information.
- International Submissions: Writers who meet the residency requirement but now reside outside the U.S. are welcome to enter. Entries must be in English.
- Multiple and Simultaneous: Both are welcome. Please notify us immediately if your submission is accepted elsewhere.
- Conflicts of Interest: Friends, relatives, colleagues, and former or current students of the judges are ineligible to submit in that category. Writers who have taken a Charlotte Lit short course with any of our judges are eligible to submit.
- Submission period: September 1 – December 1, 2021.
- Winners Announced: March 1, 2022. Journal Publication: May 1, 2022.
Charlotte Lit Writers/South adheres to the CLMP Contest Code of Ethics.
Please email us at editor@charlottelit.org with any questions.
