FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
[GREENVILLE, NC]
The North Carolina Literary Review calls for submissions of both written and performed poetry for their annual signature Poetry Prize Competitions. The submission window opens April 1st and runs through the end of the month.
The James Applewhite Poetry Prize competition invites submissions from North Carolina writers (anyone who has lived or currently lives in North Carolina). The James Applewhite Poetry Prize winner will receive $250, publication in the North Carolina Literary Review, and a Pushcart Prize nomination. A one-year subscription to the North Carolina Literary Review is required to submit one to three poems, and a two-year subscription or membership in the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association is required to submit four to five poems. Submissions are due by April 30, 2026. For more information on eligibility and submission instructions, visit https://nclr.ecu.edu/submissions/applewhite-guidelines/.
For this contest, the 2026 guest final judge is Tyree Daye, Assistant Professor in English & Comparative Literature at UNC-CH, and author of a little bump in the earth (Copper Canyon Press, 2024), Cardinal (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), and River Hymns (American Poetry Review, 2017), winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. A Cave Canem fellow and a Palm Beach Poetry Festival Langston Hughes Fellow, Daye is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award, a Kate Tufts Award finalist, and a 2021 Paterson Prize finalist. “I am so excited to read your submissions to the 2026 James Applewhite Poetry Prize that honors a fellow North Carolina poet.” Daye said.
The Jaki Shelton Green Performance Poetry Prize Contest is open to all North Carolina writers (anyone who has lived or currently lives in North Carolina) and is dedicated to performance poetry. Poets must either subscribe to NCLR or be a member of the North Carolina Poetry Society. The winner of the Jaki Shelton Green Performance Poetry Prize will receive $250 and have their performance featured on NCLR’s YouTube channel and shared in the NCLR Online Fall issue. Submissions are due by April 30, 2026. For more information on eligibility and submission guidelines, visit https://nclr.ecu.edu/submissions/green-guidelines/.
Khalisa Rae will be the guest final judge for the Green Prize for 2026. Rae is the co-founder of the Griot and Grey Owl Black Southern Writers Conference and author of Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat (Red Hen Press), a collection that interrogates lineage, faith, and inherited silence, and the forthcoming Unlearning Eden & Knee Length, which reimagines the boundaries of respectability, girlhood, and rebellion. A former journalist and editor with bylines in national outlets, she brings a multidisciplinary lens to her writing, blending poetry, essays, and cultural criticism to explore the complexities of identity, intimacy, and survival. Her work has appeared in Obsidian, The Rumpus, Southern Humanities Review, Rhino, and more.
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.