The North Carolina Literary Review accepts submissions for the 2022 Doris Betts Fiction Prize starting Thursday, September 15.
The deadline to submit is October 31. Find the full submission guidelines here.
The Doris Betts Fiction Prize is open to any writer who is a legal resident of North Carolina or a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network. North Carolina Literary Review subscribers with North Carolina connections (NC resident or former resident) are also eligible.
The recipient of the Doris Betts Fiction Prize receives $250 and publication in the North Carolina Literary Review, whose editor also will nominate the winning story for a Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award.
Finalists also will be considered for publication in the NCLR. Those stories selected for publication also will be nominated for an O. Henry, and authors will receive $50 to $150, depending on how many stories are selected.
The final judge for the 2022 Doris Betts Fiction Prize is Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle.
Clapsaddle, an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, resides in Qualla, NC, with her family. She holds degrees from Yale University and the College of William and Mary. Her debut novel, Even As We Breathe, was released by the University Press of Kentucky in 2020. It received the 2021 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award and was a finalist for the Weatherford Award and one of NPR’s Best Books in 2020. Her first novel manuscript, “Going to Water,” received the Morning Star Award for Creative Writing from the Native American Literature Symposium (2012) and was a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction (2014). Clapsaddle’s work has appeared in Yes! Magazine, Lit Hub, Smoky Mountain Living Magazine, South Writ Large, and The Atlantic.
For more than 30 years, East Carolina University and the North Carolina Literary & Historical Association have published the North Carolina Literary Review, a journal devoted to showcasing the Tar Heel State’s literary excellence. Described by one critic as “everything you ever wanted out of a literary publication but never dared to demand,” the NCLR has won numerous awards and citations.
The annual Doris Betts Fiction Prize honors the late fiction writer Doris Betts and is sponsored by the nonprofit North Carolina Writers’ Network, 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.
Find submission guidelines for the Doris Betts Fiction Prize contest here. Email questions to NCLRstaff@ecu.edu.