NCLR 2026

Click on cover to see full spread of the cover.

Featuring Military Writing in North Carolina

cover art by elin o’Hara slavick

read the NCLR 2026 press release

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Pushcart Nominations

Karen Sherk Chio
Laura Cruser
Others TBA

“Who shall absolve the foulness”

section introduction by Anna Froula, Guest Feature Editor

“‘. . . what does it mean to win a war?’ asks Paul
Crenshaw in these pages. And what parts of war
get inside you and stay?”

Taking the Swamp to the Jungle:
The Role of the Lumbee Identity in Delano Cummings’s
Moon Dash Warrior
by Jessica Cory
art by Gene Locklear

All Clear
a essay by Leah Hampton
art by Reuben Jarvis Mabry

Arc Light
a poem by Elisabeth Lewis Corley
art by elin o’Hara Slavick

Discovering Laos and Finding My Voice:
An Homage to My Military Father
an essay by Kimberly Towers-Kubik
art by Reuben Jarvis Mabry

The Album
a poem and art by Michael White

From Eyes Right and Thereafter, From Military Scandal to
Mentor, Writer, and Publisher: An Interview with
Marine Corps Veteran – and Writer – Tracy Crow
by Alyssa Froemel
art by Ida Mae

The Whittaker Wall
Doris Betts Fiction Prize Story by Laura Cruser
art by Mary Kamerer, Dan Nelson, and Skip Rohde

Oil Fires Burning
an essay by Paul Crenshaw
art by Darrold Peters

Looking for the “form things wish to come as”:
An Interview with Michael Ramos
an interview by Anna Froula

Grabbing Us by the Ears:
A Panel Discussion with Three Veteran Writers
an interview by Anna Froula
art by A.R. Ammons

Raccoon
Barrax/Bayes Prize poem
by Morrow Dowdle
art by Glenn Eure

Miraculous
an essay by Joseph Bathanti

A “Miraculous” Addendum: Brothers Like These
Performances Open Paths for Veterans’ Awareness
by Joseph Bathanti

Flashbacks: Echoes of Past Issues

Several Seconds Lauded

section introduction by Margaret D. Bauer, Editor

“The content in this section revisits some of our most popular past feature themes: Appalachian (2010), Environmental (2011), African American (2019), Expatriate North Carolina Writers (2020), and LGBTQ+ (2025) Literature of North Carolina. . . . “

This Postage Stamp of Mountain Soil
by Terry Roberts

Can Literary Language Save Us?
an address by Ben Fountain

Slaughter
Jacobs/Jones African American Literary Prize
short story by Brenda C. Wilson
art by Cornelio Campos

Spelunking
a short story by Theresa Dowell Blackinton
art by Catharine Carter

Boogie’s Purse
a short story by Julian Anderson
art by Ida Mae

Reflections of the Ecosystem
a poem by Roxanne Henderson
art by Luther Stroup

My Stillborn Son, the Moon
the James Applewhite Poetry Prize
poem by Karen Sherk Chio
art by Elizabeth Catlett

North Carolina Miscellany

The Second Fold of Our Twofold Mission

section introduction by Margaret D. Bauer, Editor

“. . . Our mission, as readers familiar with NCLR know, is to preserve and promote the state’s rich literary history, and we include in that, literary history in the making, North Carolina writers like Mimi Herman and Sharon Kurtzman, whose first novels are discussed in these pages. . . .”

Mimi Herman’s Timeless Coming of Age Novel, The Kudzu Queen
an interview by Margaret D. Bauer

When Darkness Comes, Look for the Light: A Conversation with Sharon Kurtzman on her Debut Novel, The Lost Baker of Vienna
Randall Kenan Prize Interview by Sheryl Cornett