New River Valley Voices Spring 2019 Competition

Juried selections of works by NRV writers will be featured in the Spring Valley Voices Writing Celebration on Saturday, April 27th, 2019 at 3 p.m. at the Blacksburg Public Library.

NRV writers are invited to submit up to three poems, with a maximum of 65 lines per poem, and/or up to two prose entries (short stories, creative non-fiction, standalone excerpts from a longer prose work) with a maximum cumulative total of 2,200 words. Up to two flash fiction entries, each up to 750 words, are also welcome.

The jury’s selections are based on literary merit and assessment of how the piece complements the overall presented program.

Submission Details

DEADLINE: March 11, 2019

Eligibility:

1. Submissions must be unpublished at the time of entry and must not have been presented in a public venue in the New River Valley.
2. Winners must prepare to present their works before a live audience by attending a one-on-one session, at no cost, with a Valley Voices coach. The purpose of this coaching session is to polish the readings, increase writers’ comfort level in presenting before an audience, and enhance the overall quality of the program.
3. Winners must attend an informal group rehearsal on Friday, April 26th, 5-6:15 p.m.
4. All winners are expected to be present on Saturday, April 27th to read their winning entries.
5. Fall 2018 winners are asked to withhold submitting work until the Fall 2019 competition.

Formatting:

• 12-point Times New Roman or Palatino font
• One-inch margins
• Double-spaced type for prose
• All documents should be formatted using only normal text formatting with no layout and design features (e.g., no tables, columns, graphics, paragraph outlining, or drawing features such as text boxes or text following a curve, etc.).
• The top of each page should include title, category (prose or poetry) and page number.
• Include a cover page with title, name, phone & email, word count, and category (prose or poetry).
• Author’s name should appear only on the cover page. Submissions are judged anonymously.
• Submissions that do not follow these guidelines will not be considered.
• Submissions should be emailed as attachments (Word document, .doc or .docx) to nrvalleyvoices@gmail.com

You will receive an email confirmation of your submission within five business days. Please contact Valley Voices if you do not.

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