South Carolina Academy of Authors offers fellowships for poetry and fiction

The South Carolina Academy of Authors invites entries for its annual fellowships in poetry and fiction. Fellows receive $1,000 and are invited to the Academy’s induction ceremony on April 27 in Columbia.

Fellowship applicants must be full-time South Carolina residents. There are no restrictions on content, however submitted works must unpublished. December 1 is the deadline for both competitions.

The judge for the 2012 Carrie McCray Nickens Poetry Fellowship competition is Nick Lantz, author of  poetry collections “We Don’t Know We Don’t Know” (Graywolf Press, 2010) and “The Lightning That Strikes the Neighbors’ House” (University of Wisconsin Press, 2010). He is the recipient of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Bakeless Prize, the Felix Pollak Prize, the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award and the Larry Levis Reading Prize. He teaches creative writing at Tinker Mountain Writers’ Workshop, Queens University’s Low-Residency MFA, and at Sam Houston State University, where he is the poetry editor of the Texas Review.

Mary Robison, the Fiction Fellowship judge, has been widely hailed for her biting depictions of contemporary American life since her story “Sisters” was published in The New Yorker in 1977. Since then, her stories have appeared in The Paris Review, Esquire, GQ, Harvard Magazine, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Fiction, The Pushcart Prize and The O.Henry Prize Stories. Her novel “Why Did I Ever” won the Los Angeles Times Book prize for Fiction, and “One D.O.A., One on the Way” was chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the “100 Most Notable Books of the Year.” Robison has received numerous awards, including a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, and in 2009 the prestigious Rea Award For The Short Story. She teaches at the University of Florida.

Visit the S.C. Academy of Authors website for application guidelines.

Induction ceremony open to the public
The public may purchase tickets to the induction ceremony being held April 27 in Columbia at the University of South Carolina. This year’s inductees are Jack Bass, Nikky Finney, Terrance Hayes and Eugene Robinson. The Academy board selects new inductees annually whose works have been judged culturally important. Each inductee, whether living or deceased, has added to South Carolina’s literary legacy by earning notable scholarly attention or achieving historical prominence. For ticket information, visit the Academy’s website.

Left to right: Jack Bass, Nikky Finney, Terrance Hayes, Eugene Robinson

About the S.C. Academy of Authors
The Academy’s principal purpose is to identify and recognize the state’s distinguished writers and to promote their literature’s influence on our cultural heritage. Public recognition of our state’s literary hall of fame not only serves to increase the general readership of authors working today but also leads to the rediscovery of works from the past.

Via: S.C. Academy of Authors