The Mountain Heritage Literary
Festival
June 15-17, 2012
Contest Guidelines
The Mountain Heritage Literary Festival at Lincoln Memorial University announces its fourth annual writing competition. Prize amounts of $150 for first place, $75 for second place and $50 for third place are awarded in each category. Honorable mentions are awarded at the discretion of the judges.
$150 for first place
$75
for second place
$50
for third place
| The Jesse Stuart Prize for Young Adult Fiction Entries for this prize are limited to no more than 2,000 words and may not be entered simultaneously in the Still contest. Irene Latham will Judge. Latham is a poet and novelist who writes heart-touching tales of unexpected adventure. Her debut midgrade historical novel Leaving Gee’s Bend is set in Alabama during the Great Depression and was awarded Alabama Library Association's 2011 Children's Book Award and has been hailed as “authentic and memorable” by Booklist and “a tale that will stay with the reader forever” by Book Page. She has published over 170 poems of various books, journals and anthologies, including a full-length collection What Came Before. Her latest volume of poetry The Color of Lost Rooms was awarded the 19th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Prize for Poetry. |
| The James Still Prize for Short Story Entries for this prize should be no more than 4,000 words and there is no restriction on subject matter. Lisa Alther will judge. Alther is the author of five novels -- Kinflicks, Original Sins, Other Women, Bedrock and Five Minutes in Heaven. Each has appeared on bestseller lists worldwide, having been translated into more than 15 languages. One of Alther's stated aims is to portray the human reality behind cultural stereotypes, particularly those regarding women. She often deals with such material in a humorous fashion, reviewers in both the New York Times Book Review and The Nation having written that she possesses "comic genius". Here most recent publication is the three-part novel Washed in the Blood, published October 2011 by Mercer University Press. A collection of short stories called Stormy Weather and Other Stories is due in 2012, as well as a history of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. |
| The George Scarbrough Prize for Poetry There are no restrictions on subject matter for this prize. Jesse Graves will judge. Graves was raised in Sharps Chapel, Tennessee, just north of Knoxville. He teaches writing and literature classes at East Tennessee State University, where he is Assistant Professor of English. His first poetry collection Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine was released by Texas Review Press in January 2012. He recently served as guest editor for a special issue of The Southern Quarterly on “The Poetry and Prose of Robert Morgan,” and is co-editor with William Wright and Paul Ruffin of The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume III: Contemporary Appalachia. |
| The Emma Bell Miles Prize for Essay This prize is restricted to essays that address Appalachian life, literature, religion, folklore, culture and/or values. Entries for this prize should be no more than 4,000 words. Sharon Hatfield will judge. Sheis a graduate of Lincoln Memorial University. She was an award-winning newspaper reporter in Wise County, Virginia, and she coedited An American Vein: Critical Readings in Appalachian Literature. Her book Never Seen the Moon lucidly recreates Edith Maxwell’s wild ride through the American legal system in the 1930s and was the winner of the Thomas and Lillie D. Chaffin Celebration of Appalachian Writing Award and the W. D. Weatherford Award for Non-fiction in Appalachian Studies. |
| General Contest Rules Submitted entries must be unpublished. Simultaneous entries are accepted. Manuscripts should be typed in a “plain” 12 point font (i.e. Times, Arial). Photocopies are accepted. Prose must be double spaced. Poetry must be single spaced. Submit two copies of your manuscript with one title page that includes your name, address, telephone number, email address, the title of the piece and the name of the contest to which you are submitting. Make sure that your name does not appear anywhere besides the title page to insure blind judging. Please enclose a check or money order for $10 per entry. Multiple entries are welcome and may be submitted in one envelope (this includes even if you’re submitting in multiple genres, which we welcome), but please include a separate entry fee for each contest submission, as well as separate title pages for each entry. There is no need to write multiple checks or money orders for more than one entry; one payment for the total amount is encouraged. We do not acknowledge receipt of submissions. And, while we take the greatest care in handling your submissions, we assume no responsibility for lost or damaged manuscripts. Contest entry fees cannot be refunded under any circumstances. Contest winners will be announced and recognized at the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival at LMU on Saturday, June 16, 2012. Contest prizes will be mailed to winners who are not present at the festival’s award ceremony. Contest results will be announced on the festival’s website within the following week. Email notification will be sent to contest entrants if a working email address is included on the submitted title page. Contest results will only be announced online and by email; please do not send a SASE for results. Deadline for postmark is Monday, May 7, 2012. Any entry that is not postmarked on or before that date will not be opened. Failure to follow any of the above guidelines could result in disqualification. Do not send the only copy of your work as all entries will be recycled. Please enclose $10 fee per entry (unlimited entries per person) and send your submission to: Send email inquiries to Denton Loving at denton.loving@lmunet.edu. |
Lincoln Memorial University
Cumberland Gap Parkway
P.O. Box 2005
Harrogate, TN 37752
Phone:
423.869.6432 or 800.325.0900, ext. 6432
