Last Call for the Jacobs/Jones African-American Literary Prize
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WINSTON-SALEM—November 1 marks the beginning of "Contest Season" for the North Carolina Writers' Network. Over the next five months, NCWN will award more than $4,000 in cash prizes, and writers will potentially land publications in reputable literary journals across North Carolina.
The Jacobs/Jones African-American Literary Prize, which honors the best in short prose by African-American writers in North Carolina, is now open.
The deadline is January 2, 2020.
The contest, sponsored by NCWN and administered by the Creative Writing Program at UNC-Chapel Hill, is open to any African-American writer whose primary residence is in North Carolina. Entries may be fiction or creative nonfiction, but must not have been published before (including on any website, blog, or social media), and must be no more than 3,000 words.
The winner will receive $1,000 and possible publication of their winning entry in The Carolina Quarterly.
The final judge of the 2020 Jacobs/Jones contest will be author and journalist Bridgette A. Lacy.
Bridgette A. Lacy is an award-winning journalist and author. She served as a longtime features writer for The News & Observer in Raleigh. She's the author of Sunday Dinner, a part of the Savor the South series by UNC Press and a finalist for the Pat Conroy Cookbook Prize. Lacy is also a contributor to The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food, edited by Randall Kenan (Eno Publishers, 2016) and 27 Views of Raleigh: The City of Oaks in Prose & Poetry (Eno Publisher, 2013). Her work has appeared in Our State, Salt, and O.Henry magazines.
The Jacobs/Jones African-American Literary Prize honors the nineteenth-century writers Harriet Jacobs and Thomas H. Jones. Jacobs was born in 1813 near Edenton, escaping to Philadelphia in 1842, after hiding for seven years in a crawl space above her grandmother’s ceiling. She published her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, under a pseudonym in 1861. Jacobs died in 1897 and was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame in 1997.
Jones was born into slavery near Wilmington in 1806. Able to purchase the freedom of his wife and all but one of his children, he followed them north in 1849 by stowing away on a brig to New York. In the northeast and in Canada, he spoke as a preacher and abolitionist, writing his memoir, The Experience of Thomas Jones, in 1854, as a way to raise funds to buy his eldest child’s freedom.
This Jacobs/Jones African-American Literary Prize was initiated by Cedric Brown, a Winston-Salem native and graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Though Brown has lived in California the last three decades, he has “deep roots, an abiding love, and a little house in the Tar Heel State,” he said.
“The literary award was borne out of my frustration with being unable to readily find much fiction or creative nonfiction that conveys the rich and varied existence of Black North Carolinians,” Brown said. “I wanted to incentivize the development of written works while also encouraging Black writers to capture our lives through storytelling.”
The winner of the inaugural Jacobs/Jones African-American Literary Prize, in 2019, was Sandra Headen of Raleigh, for her short story, "Papa's Gifts."
The full competition guidelines are listed below and can be found at www.ncwriters.org.
JACOBS/JONES AFRICAN-AMERICAN LITERARY PRIZE
Postmark Deadline: January 2 (annual)
Submissions Accepted: November 1 – January 2
The Jacobs/Jones African-American Literary Prize honors Harriet Jacobs and Thomas Jones, two pioneering African-American writers from North Carolina, and seeks to convey the rich and varied existence of Black North Carolinians. The contest is administered by the Creative Writing Program at UNC-Chapel Hill. The winner receives $1,000 and possible publication of the winning entry in The Carolina Quarterly.
Eligibility and Guidelines
- The competition is open to any African-American writer whose primary residence is in North Carolina.
- Entries may be fiction or creative nonfiction, but must be unpublished, no more than 3,000 words, and concerned with the lives and experiences of North Carolina African-Americans. Entries may be excerpts from longer works, but must be self-contained. Entries will be judged on literary merit.
- An entry fee must accompany each submission: $10 for NCWN members, $20 for nonmembers. You may submit multiple entries, but the correct fee must accompany each one.
- You may pay the members’ entry fee if you join the NCWN when you submit.
- Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
- If submitting by mail, submit two copies of an unpublished manuscript, not to exceed 3,000 words, on single-sided pages, double-spaced, in black 12-point Times New Roman font, with 1-inch margins.
- The author’s name should not appear on the manuscript. Instead, include a separate cover sheet with name, address, phone number, e-mail address, word count, and manuscript title.
- To submit by USPS:
Jacobs/Jones African-American Literary Prize
UNC Creative Writing Program
Attn: Anita Braxton
Greenlaw Hall, CB#3520
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3520
- To submit online, go to https://ncwriters.submittable.com/submit. Submittable will collect your entry fee via credit card ($10 NCWN members / $20 nonmembers). (If submitting online, do not include a cover sheet with your document; Submittable will collect and record your name and contact information.)
- Entries will not be returned.
- The winner will be announced in February.
For questions, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The non-profit North Carolina Writers’ Network is the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to all writers at all stages of development. For additional information, visit www.ncwriters.org.
Write Your First Book with Shelia P. Moses
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ALEXANDRIA, VA—You've known for a while now that you have a book inside you. But it seems like such a massive undertaking. The scope is so much larger than those essays or short stories you've published, you wonder where to even begin.
And yet, deep down, you know that you can write a great one.
On Tuesday, December 17, at 7:00 pm, National Book Award Finalist Shelia P. Moses will lead the online class "Techniques for Writing Your First Book."
Registration is closed.
This course is capped at forty (40) registrants, first-come, first-served. There is a $45 fee to register.
A good novel, memoir, or children's book should be filled with great images to draw readers into the story. This is achieved via great language. This workshop will explore the art of descriptive writing and how to create memorable narrative.
Workshop discussions will include:
- Prewriting
- Developing characters
- First Draft
- Revising you manuscript
Shelia P. Moses, is an African-American writer whose subjects include comedian Dick Gregory and the legend of Buddy Bush. In 2004, she was nominated for the National Book Award and named the Coretta Scott King Honoree for The Legend of Buddy Bush. In 2009, her novel Joseph was nominated for the NAACP Image Award.
Shelia is currently working on a novel titled Yardsale, and she lives in Old Town in Alexandria, Virginia.
"Techniques for Writing Your First Book" is the North Carolina Writers' Network's second 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 "Techniques for Writing Your First Book" is available to anyone with an internet connection, or who even owns just a telephone. Instructions for accessing the online class on Tuesday, December 17, 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.