by Margaret Bauer, Editor
I can’t believe it’s already mid-July—except when I step outside, that is, and the blast of heat reminds me. Summer is as busy as any other time. I may not have to balance its heavy workload with my teaching responsibilities, but with the students gone, neither do I have full staff support in summer. Just because we send the 2025 print issue to the publisher right after the spring semester definitely does not mean we rest until fall convocation. NCLR is a round-the-calendar enterprise.
Example 1: As soon as I handed off the 2025 issue files, I turned my attention to the 2026 feature theme, North Carolina military writing, getting the word out to remind interviewers and literary scholars to take advantage of their summer writing time to conduct interviews with and write critical articles on military writers connected to North Carolina. These submissions are due by August 31. If you missed last month’s editors’ blog by Guest Feature Editor Anna Froula, read it here. And creative writers who have served or are serving, mark your calendars for our upcoming contests.
Example 2: Also in May, we sent the poetry submissions out for screening and wrapped up the 2025 Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize contest. Art Editor Diane Rodman began immediately to search for art to complement one of the finalists from the Albright contest and a finalist from the last Betts Fiction Prize contest, both of which works are forthcoming in the fall 2025 issue.
Example 3: Book Review Editor Kristi Southern never stops as she continues to manage review assignments, and Senior Editorial Assistant Kenly Anderson has been working solo this summer, the only student staff member helping me to move the reviews forthcoming in the fall issue through the production process. Thanks go out to the other editors who’ve been proofreading those reviews over the summer: Senior Associate Editor Christy Hallberg, Assistant Editor Anne Mallory, and Fiction Editor Rebecca Bernard—all volunteers, I would note.
Example 4: June began with the announcement of the Jaki Shelton Green Performance Poetry Prize winner and honorees and ended with the James Applewhite Poetry Prize contest results. Diane is now selecting art for the poems. In between the two sets of contest results, Kenly recorded the incoming North Carolina Book Award nominations because, no surprise, the majority of the books came in during the last weeks before the July 1 nomination deadline.
Example 5: At the end of June/beginning of July, Digital Editor Devra Thomas moderated panels at Carolina K-12’s William Friday Teachers Retreat in Asheville, co-sponsored by two of our funding sources: the North Caroliniana Society and the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. There she was able to talk with teachers about NCLR’s interest in hearing (and sharing) how they bring North Carolina literature into their K-12 classrooms. She joined authors Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, Vanessa Miller, and Terry Roberts, all of whom have novels set in Western North Carolina.
Example 6: NCLR filed its grant report to the North Carolina Arts Council in June. We are so grateful for their continued support, which first added our Digital Editor to staff back in 2022. Now, those grant dollars are crucial to covering the additional cost of our award-winning graphic design for now four rather than just the one issue per year. And our grants supplement our funding from the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, which allows us to provide honoraria to the writers and artists we publish.
Speaking of “Lit and Hist,” I received my renewal notice in the mail in recent weeks, and I urge you to join me in renewing, if you’re already a member, or to join this important organization, if you’re not. Members of Lit and Hist receive both NCLR and the North Carolina Historical Review as part of their membership. An added bonus of membership: you can submit extra poems or essays to NCLR’s contests, which require a subscription rather than a submission fee. As they say, it’s a bargain. More important, you’re supporting an organization that has been supporting literary and historical preservation since 1900, including sponsoring the North Carolina Book Awards. With all the nominated books now out to the judges, we’ve updated the book award guidelines for next year’s competition, answering questions most often asked in the now two years that we’ve managed.
This coming weekend, NCLR will be honored at the North Carolina Writers Conference. As I prepare to celebrate this recognition with Founding Editor Alex Albright, I’m mindful of how we’ve grown since the premiere issue, published in 1992:
- from an annual to a quarterly,
- releasing a new book review every week,
- this monthly editors’ blog,
- our monthly newsletter (subscribe via the form on the bottom of our home page to receive it),
- managing four creative writing contests and the North Carolina Book Awards,
- and grant writing on top of all of that!
One thing has not changed: our mission to preserve and promote the state’s rich literary tradition.
So as we fill the pages of the fall issue, solicit material for the 2026 issues, and set up shop for the new student staff to begin work next semester, I await, with many of you, my copies of the 2025 issue. If you’ve not already subscribed, you can order the issue from UNC Press here; or, you might urge your local independent bookstore to order copies for their shelves.
And if you are so inclined, you can provide a little extra support with your tax-deductible donation. Such gifts also help to pay for graphic design, writer and artist honoraria, editors’ travel to literary events, increased marketing, and more. In short, it helps to stretch the budget to meet the demands of your award-winning literary review covering the writingest state.