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GREENSBORO—The 2020 Randall Jarrell Poetry Competitionis now open for submissions.
The competition recognizes a single previously unpublished poem up to forty (40) lines and is open to any writer who is a legal resident of North Carolina or a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network.
The winner receives $200 and publication in a Special Feature of storySouth. The postmark deadline is March 1.
To submit, click here.
This year's final judge is Nicole Stockburger.
Nicole Stockburger is the author of Nowhere Beulah (2019), winner of the Unicorn Press First Book Award. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, The Journal, The Adroit Journal, and Frontier Poetry, among others. Nicole received an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a BA in Studio Art and English from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She lives and works on a stretch of land in the NC foothills near her hometown, Winston-Salem.
The Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition honors poet and critic Randall Jarrell, who taught at what is now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for nearly eighteen years. He was a 1996 inductee of the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame who left behind nine books of poetry, four books of literary criticism, four children’s books, five anthologies, a bestselling academic novel, a translation of Goethe’s Faust, Part I, and a translation of Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, produced on Broadway by The Actors’ Studio.
The competition is administered by Terry L. Kennedy, Associate Director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
StorySouth is an online literary journal dedicated to showcasing the best poetry (and fiction and creative nonfiction) that writers from the "new south" have to offer. Facilitated by the Graduate Program in Creative Writing at UNCG, storySouth aims to prove that "the internet is not just a medium of flash and style; that excellent writing can attract attention without programming gimmicks and hard-to-read fonts." storySouth believes the American South today is a "mix of traditional and new, regional and international."
Alan Michael Parker of Davidson won the 2019 Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition for his poem "Psalm," which posited a series of conditional statements that unfolded beautifully.
The winning poem and the finalists can be read for free on www.storysouth.com.
Here are the complete guidelines:
Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition
Postmark deadline: March 1 (annual)
Submissions accepted: January 15 – March 1
The Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition accepts one-poem submissions. The contest awards the winner $200 and publication in storySouth. Questions may be directed to Terry L. Kennedy, Associate Director, MFA Writing Program, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Eligibility and 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 March 1
- Entries can be submitted one of two ways:
- Send one printed copy 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.
- Simultaneous submissions ok, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
- Poem will not be returned. If submitting by mail, include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a list of winner and finalists. The winner and finalists will be announced in May.
- An entry fee must accompany the poem. Multiple submissions are accepted, one poem per entry fee: $10 for NCWN members, $15 for nonmembers.
- You may pay member entry fee if you join the NCWN with your submission. Checks should be made payable to the North Carolina Writers’ Network.
- Submissions should be one poem only (40-line limit), original, and previously unpublished.
- Poem must be typed (single-spaced) and stapled in the left-hand corner.
- Author's name should not appear on manuscripts. Instead, include a separate cover sheet with name, address, phone number, e-mail address, word count, and manuscript title. (If submitting online, do not include a cover sheet with your document; Submittable will collect and record your name and contact information.)
- If submitting by mail, send submissions to:
Terry L. Kennedy
MFA Writing Program
3302 MHRA Building
UNC Greensboro
Greensboro, NC 27402-6170
Questions may be directed to Terry L. Kennedy, Associate Director, MFA Writing Program, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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.
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ONEONTA, NY—Characters don't just happen to live inside the worlds we create for them, they inhabit their worlds as living, breathing beings. They are products of their environments, interacting with, influencing, and being influenced by their habitats.
That's why setting is so important. More than merely a two-dimensional backdrop, the setting can reflect, oppose, and shift the interior worlds of our characters.
On Tuesday, February 11, at 7:00 pm, novelist George Hovis will lead the online class "Vivid Landscapes, Unpredictable Characters, Unforgettable Stories" (Fiction).
Registration is open.
This course is capped at forty (40) registrants, first-come, first-served. There is a $45 fee to register.
Dive into a discussion of strategies for finding the exotic, the surreal, and the sublime available in everyday landscapes. During this session, we’ll explore how setting gives birth to original characters and plots—and how, in turn, the choices of characters define a place.
After examining the function of setting in the work of masters such as Zora Neale Hurston, Mark Twain, and Lee Smith, we’ll map the settings of our own fictional worlds in order to discover the surprises lurking therein.
Moving beyond mere description, we will see how both the actions and interior life of characters are driven by the places they inhabit.
George Hovis' debut novel, The Skin Artist (SFK, 2019), explores the gothic urban South, a world of tattoo magic and failed upward mobility. His stories and essays have appeared widely in such journals as The Carolina Quarterly, The Fourth River, Mississippi Quarterly, New Madrid, Southern Cultures, The Southern Literary Journal, and North Carolina Literary Review. A Pushcart Prize nominee and a former president of the Thomas Wolfe Society, he earned a Ph.D from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has attended the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He is a professor of English at SUNY Oneonta and a recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.
"Vivid Landscapes, Unpredictable Characters, Unforgettable Stories" (Fiction) is the North Carolina Writers' Network's fourth offering in their 2019-2020 series of online classes.
"This program is a great way for writers from all over North Carolina to connect without having the hassle of driving somewhere and finding parking," said NCWN communications director Charles Fiore. "Online classes offer top-shelf instruction for a fraction of the cost, and the software itself is very intuitive and easy to use."
The online class "Vivid Landscapes, Unpredictable Characters, Unforgettable Stories" (Fiction) is available to anyone with an internet connection, or who even owns just a telephone. Instructions for accessing the online class on Tuesday, February 11, will be sent to registrants no less than twenty-four hours prior to the start of class. The class will be archived and made available to registrants for repeated viewings.
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.
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CARRBORO—Poets must continually hold tangible language in one hand and the more abstract, artistic intent of their work in the other. It's no small feat. The most effective poems balance these two polar opposites; it's often through the tangible that the abstract moves us.
If you've ever struggled to turn your artistic intent into a flesh-and-blood poem, the next online class in the North Carolina Writers' Network online series is for you.
On Tuesday, January 14, 2020, at 7:00 pm, poet and educator Gideon Young will lead the online class "Balancing the Concrete and Conceptual" (Poetry).
Registration is closed.
This course is capped at forty (40) registrants, first-come, first-served. There is a $45 fee to register.
In this workshop, we’ll study the poetry of Sandra Lim, Jake Skeets, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Penn Warren, Richard Wright, and Crystal Simone Smith, examining aspects of the real and ethereal, matter and imagination, the world and the mind. We’ll write poems, engage in dynamic and positive discussion and critique, and have fun!
Gideon Young is a member of the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective and the Carrboro Poets Council. His poetry has appeared/is forthcoming in Backbone Press, Haibun Today, Modern Haiku, Obsidian: Literature in the African Diaspora, Sons & Daughters Literary Journal, and The Elizabeth Keckley Reader: A Determined Life, Vol. II. Gideon is a co-author of One Window’s Light: A Collection of Haiku, edited by Lenard D Moore and published by Unicorn Press in2017, winner of the Haiku Society of America Merit Award for Best Anthology. Gideon is a Teaching Fellow for A+ Schools of North Carolina, a K-12 Literacy Specialist, and stay-at-home dad.
"Balancing the Concrete and Conceptual" (Poetry) is the North Carolina Writers' Network's third offering in their 2019-2020 series of online classes.
"This program is a great way for writers from all over North Carolina to connect without having the hassle of driving somewhere and finding parking," said NCWN communications director Charles Fiore. "Online classes offer top-shelf instruction for a fraction of the cost, and the software itself is very intuitive and easy to use."
The online class "Balancing the Concrete and Conceptual" (Poetry) is available to anyone with an internet connection, or who even owns just a telephone. Instructions for accessing the online class on Tuesday, January 14, 2020, will be sent to registrants no less than twenty-four hours prior to the start of class. The class will be archived and made available to registrants for repeated viewings.
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.