[GREENVILLE, NC]
NCLR is proud to announce the recipients of the 2026 John Ehle and the Randall Kenan Prizes: Jessica Cory and Sheryl Cornett, respectively, for their essays featured in the 2026 flagship print issue.
The John Ehle Prize is awarded to the essay or interview rekindling interest in a neglected or forgotten North Carolina author. Appalachian Journal Editor and regular contributor Jessica Cory has received the prize for her essay “Taking the Swamp to the Jungle: The Role of the Lumbee Identity in Delano Cummings’s Moon Dash Warrior.” Cory writes, “Moon Dash Warrior is representative of a particular People and a particular place and… may be viewed as a representative text of Lumbee-specific literature, an area which has been underexplored by scholars with the exception of those studying the Native South.” The Ehle prize is awarded a $250 honorarium from Winston-Salem’s Press 53.
The Randall Kenan Prize is for the author of the best essay on or interview with a new (or relatively new) North Carolina writer. Four-time interviewer Sheryl Cornett introduces Sharon Kurtzman in the 2026 interview “When Darkness Comes, Look for the Light: A Conversation with Sharon Kurtzman on her Debut Novel, The Lost Baker of Vienna” in which the two explore Kurtzman’s narrative focused on her own family’s World War II and Holocaust stories. “The novel launched in August 2025 to advance accolades and praise from New York Times Bestselling authors such as North Carolina’s own Therese Anne Fowler and Diane Chamberlain among others,” Cornett touts, something North Carolina’s writer community is known for. The Kenan Prize is awarded a $250 honorarium from Kenan’s former post, the UNC Chapel Hill Creative Writing Program.
Subscribers and members of the NC Literary & Historical Association will automatically receive this issue this summer. Subscription prices will increase next year, so subscribe for two years at this year’s price to receive both our 35th issue as well as our 36th in 2027. Individual issues are currently only $20.
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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