The 2013 judges for The Nature of Words Rising Star Creative Writing Competition include Jane Kirkpatrick for fiction, Lily Raff McCaulou for nonfiction and Jason Graham for poetry. Judges will pick winners and make honorable mentions in each category and for specific age groups.
The Rising Star Creative Writing Competition, sponsored by the University of Oregon, is open to emerging writers age 15 and above living in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. The deadline for writing entries is March 10. All entries must be submitted through The Nature of Words online submission site, thenatureofwords.submishmash.com/submit.
“If you haven’t written or polished that submission-worthy poem, fiction or literary nonfiction piece, it’s time to get writing,” said Jamie Houghton, acting executive director at The Nature of Words. Full competition rules are available on NOW’s website under the Writing Contest link.
NOW honors Rising Star winners in an awards ceremony at The Nature of Words annual literary festival, scheduled for November 6-10. Winners receive a trophy, inclusion of their winning entry in The Nature of Words’ annual anthology of student writing and a scholarship to a workshop in their winning genre during The Nature of Words festival, and other prizes. Honorable mentions also see their work included in the anthology and are recognized at the awards ceremony. 2013 is the eighth year of the competition. To date, 75 emerging writers have been honored.
The 2013 judges for the Rising Star Creative Writing Competition are all published authors and live in Central Oregon.
Fiction Judge
Jane Kirkpatrick is a New York Times Bestselling author of 23 books including four non-fiction and 19 novels most based on the lives of historical women.
Literary Nonfiction Judge
Lily Raff McCaulou is an award-winning journalist who has written articles about everything from professional mini-golfers to dogs trained to find wild animal scat for science experiments.
Poetry Judge
Jason Graham aka, MOsley WOtta aka, MOWO is a poet, performer and painter. MOWO has played Sundance Film Festival, North West Music Fest, TEDx and the International PBR Festival.