Reading and Writing: Three to Judge Fiction Contest

Posted on Nov. 1, 2007

You, whoever and wherever you are, share one thing with every person who is reading this sentence right now: You are a reader.

And among the thousands of readers who might travel the path to this paragraph, some of you are writers — or would like to be.

For the second time in a little less than 10 years, the Carolina Alumni Review is hosting a spot within its pages for fiction.

Three Carolina alumni with strong credentials in creative writing have agreed to decide the winners of the Review‘s 2008 fiction contest. They will be assisted by the members of the Review staff and a few alumni who share an interest and expertise in storytelling, selecting the best entries for judging by the three-member panel. Those deciding judges will be:

• Wayne Caldwell ’69, who this summer celebrated the publication of his first novel, Cataloochee, published by Random House. (Coverage of Caldwell’s book appeared in the September/October issue of the Review, which is available online to Carolina Alumni members.)
• Pamela Duncan ’83, whose first novel, Moon Women, was a Southeast Booksellers Association Award Finalist and whose second novel, Plant Life, won the 2003 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction. She is the recipient of the 2007 James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South, awarded by the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Her third novel, The Big Beautiful, was published in March.
• Howard Owen ’71, a veteran journalist who has written eight novels with Southern themes: Rock of Ages, Turn Signal, Harry and Ruth, Answers to Lucky, Fat Lightning, Littlejohn, The Measured Man and The Rail. Owen, business editor at The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., also is a past member of the General Alumni Association’s Board of Directors.

Here’s how it works:

• The contest is open to members of the General Alumni Association, alumni, current undergraduate and graduate students and UNC faculty and staff. GAA employees, their immediate family members and members of the GAA’s Board of Directors are not eligible to enter.
• Submissions should be previously unpublished.
• Writers are encouraged to include in their submissions an element related to the state of North Carolina, its culture, people or places.
• Electronic submissions of 2,500 words or less should be sent to car@unc.edu by midnight Feb. 1, 2008. Multiple submissions from individual writers are permitted. These should be sent in separate e-mail messages. In lieu of electronic submissions, double-spaced, typed manuscripts of 2,500 words will be accepted. These should be mailed, with a postmark no later than Feb. 1, to Carolina Alumni Review Fiction Contest, P.O. Box 660, Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514-0660.
• All entries should include an accompanying page with the writer’s name, preferred e-mail address, postal address, phone number and the story title.
• The first-place winner will receive a check for $500, and that entry will be published in the Review in 2008. Second place will be awarded $250, and third place will receive $100. The top three finishers also will be published on the GAA’s Web site.

Questions? Let us know at car@unc.edu.

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Related coverage is available online:

• Winning Words: Coverage of the Review‘s first fiction contest, sponsored in 1999, from the July/August 1999 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review, available online to Carolina Alumni members.
• The Pact: Winning entry by Wayne Caldwell ’69, available online to Carolina Alumni members.

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