North Carolina Literary Review Receives Sixth Award from Council of Editors of Learned Journals

GREENVILLE, NC: North Carolina Literary Review is honored to announce receiving the 2023 “Best Public Intellectual Special Issue” award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ). This distinction is bestowed to a journal that “reaches out beyond academe and connects with a popular audience in terms of accessible language and attractive presentation… that seeks to achieve the democratic mission of higher education.” NCLR Editor Margaret Bauer noted that NCLR has always reached out beyond academia. “I was so pleased to see this new category among CELJ’s awards, as we have always published for a broad public audience. North Carolina is not only ‘the writingest state,’ as Doris Betts called it, but also the readingest state.”

The award was given to the 2023 issue featuring Native American Literature of North Carolina. Dr. Kirstin Squint, the first Guest Feature Editor, said, “It was my great honor to work with the Indigenous writers and artists and the scholars of Native American literature featured in our 2023 issue. Winning the Council of Editors of Learned Journals’ Best Public Intellectual Special Issue is a testament to the talent and hard work of our contributors and editorial staff, to whom I am incredibly grateful.” 

This is the sixth award for NCLR from CELJ, whose membership includes more than 450 editors of scholarly journals. CELJ judges stated, “We are pleased to award this year’s award for Best Public Intellectual Special Issue to NCLR’s issue devoted to Indigenous literature of North Carolina. The variety of the issue’s contents, its striking design, and its active promotion in the state’s Indigenous communities and writing networks help the issue meet its stated goal of welcoming future contributions to NCLR from Native American writers.”

Prior CELJ awards for NCLR include the 2014 Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement and the 2010 Best Design Award for the 2009 redesign spear-headed by Art Director Dana Ezzell Lovelace. Copies of the 2023 award-winning issue (as well as the remainder of our back issues) can be purchased from UNC Press. 

Produced since 1992 at East Carolina University and published by the University of North Carolina Press, the North Carolina Literary Review received additional funding for the 2023 issues from the North Carolina Arts Council and North Carolina Humanities. The mission of NCLR is to preserve and promote North Carolina’s rich literary culture. NCLR introduces new and emerging writers; reintroduces forgotten authors; showcases work in literary criticism, interviews, book reviews, fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry; and reports on literary news stories. We complement the writing with the work of North Carolina artists and photographers. 

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Previous CELJ Awards:

• 2014 Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement
• 2010 Best Journal Design
• 2007 Parnassus Award For Significant Editorial Achievement
• 1999 Best Journal Design
• 1994 Best New Journal