The postmark deadline for applications to the 2009 Neltje Blanchan and Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Writing Awards is Friday, Oct. 31, 2008.
The $1,000 Blanchan Award is given to a writer whose work, in any literary genre, is inspired by nature. The $1,000 Doubleday Award is given to the best manuscript submitted by a woman author. To apply, you must be at least 18 years old and a Wyoming resident.
The competition is sponsored by the Wyoming Arts Council and funded by artist and arts patron Neltje from Banner.
Judge for the competition is prize-winning poet Laurel Blossom from South Carolina. Her most recent book is Degrees of Latitude, a book-length narrative prose poem exploring the geography of a woman's life. Her other books include Wednesday: New and Selected Poems; The Papers Said; What's Wrong; and Any Minute. Her work has appeared in a number of anthologies, including AFTER SHOCKS: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events; 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day (Billy Collins, editor); and in national journals including Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Pequod, The Paris Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Many Mountains Moving, and Harper's, among others.
Blossom co-founded The Writers Community, the writing residency and workshop program of the YMCA National Writer’s Voice and edited its 1997 anthology, Many Lights in Many Windows: Twenty Years of Great Fiction and Poetry from The Writers Community. She’s received writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ohio Arts Council and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Applications are being mailed today to writers on the WAC mailing lists. Get your own printable application and guidelines at the WAC web site, http://wyoarts.state.wy.us/. You can also pick one up at the WAC table at the book fair in the Nicolaysen Art Museum during the Equality State Book Festival on Saturday, Sept. 20.
FMI: Michael Shay, 307-777-5234 or mshay@state.wy.us.
