Editors’ Blog

Looking for a list of Contemporary Black North Carolina authors to read for Black History Month (and beyond)?

Via the broad audience of our online issues, digitizing the print issues for library subscription services, and, of course, social media, word about NCLR is getting out.

Pulling this back around to our Teaching Tuesday and What We’re Reading Wednesday: I teach literature, which teaches empathy, which seems sorely lacking these days, and when I read inspiring writing, I want to share it.

I knew that NC had a bunch of authors: my parents went to high school with Allan Gurganus, actually, and I’d spent enough time in and around Hillsborough and Chapel Hill to have bumped into a few other well-known names. But I’ve learned why NC earned the moniker of “The Writingest State”…

We focused on the often taken for granted bits and bobs involved in magazine publication. These may not be the concrete details that make us fall in love with a piece of writing, but they are the details of publishing layout and design that allow readers to immerse themselves in that very dream. 

As the October 31 deadline for this year’s competition draws near, I find myself reflecting on some of the past winners and finalists we’ve published in the journal—such as Leah Hampton, Annie Frazier, Robert Wallace, Thomas Wolf, Heather Bell Adams, and last year’s winner, Erin Miller Reid—and on Doris Betts herself.

And yet, editing poetry reviews is not all that Anne does in her voluntary service to NCLR. She is also among the screeners for the James Applewhite Poetry Prize, which has been receiving about 400 poems a year since the pandemic.

“Whether I was collaborating with interns to edit an interview transcription, reaching out to local bookstores for images of North Carolina authors at events for book reviews, or attending events for NCLR at ECU, working for NCLR was one of the most exciting jobs I’ve had. Period.”