FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
[GREENVILLE, NC]
The Winter issue of the North Carolina Literary Review introduces the 2026 feature, “Military Writing in North Carolina.” Guest Feature Editor Anna Froula begins this issue expressing her hope that these writings will “open new avenues for conversation and understanding of the unique experiences of military service and the long absence it creates for families.”
The feature section includes “resin,” a poem by Julian P. Seddon, a finalist in the North Carolina Writers’ Network’s Barrax/Bayes poetry contest for military writers, and “Love During Wartime,” a 2025 James Applewhite Poetry Prize semifinalist poem by Michael Loderstedt. The feature reviews are of two memoirs: Barbara Presnell’s Otherwise, I’m Fine and Michael Ramos’s The After: A Veteran’s Notes on Coming Home. The feature section also includes “When the Devil Walked on Water,” creative nonfiction by Kyle Abbott Smith. Artwork on the cover and within the feature section is by Amy Louise Brown, retired from 20 years of Army, during which time she served 3 years as the Army’s artist-in-residence.
NCLR Editor Margaret Bauer introduces this issue’s Flashbacks section with congratulations and celebrations for our recent North Carolina literary awards. There is an essay by Susan Wilson, winner, and Mildred Kiconro Barya, honorable mention, in NCLR’s 2025 Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize contest and a poem by J.S. Absher, who received honorable mention in the 2025 James Applewhite Poetry Prize contest. The numerous book reviews in the section include a review of ECU alumnus Dean Marshall Tuck’s debut novel, Twinless Twin, which won the 2025 James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel from the AWP.
Bauer introduces the North Carolina Miscellany section with a thank you to NCLR’s longtime and now retired Art Editor Diane Rodman for all her years of outstanding service to the publication and a welcome to new Art Editor Donna Kain, who is working with Diane on the art for this year. This section of new-to-NCLR writers includes Makayla Carmichael’s essay, which received second place in the 2025 Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize contest, Applewhite Prize finalist poems by Joan Barasovska and Zachariah Claypole White, and six more reviews, bringing the total to 25 books reviewed in this issue. As usual, these and the other creative works in the issue are complemented by fine art by North Carolina artists.
NCLR Online issues are open access. Find the full table of contents of this issue and, upon its release, a link to the issue here. Subscribe to NCLR to read more featured content on “Military Writing in North Carolina” and more of our contest honorees in all the 2026 issues.
Produced since 1992 at East Carolina University, North Carolina Literary Review has the mission 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 the state’s literary news. The featured artwork is by exclusively North Carolina artists. NCLR’s award-winning journal is published by the University of North Carolina Press and is supported by ECU, North Carolina Arts Council, the North Carolina Literary & Historical Association, and the Friends of NCLR.
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