The Southern Sin Essay Contest
Creative Nonfiction (CNF) and the Oxford Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference & Workshop are looking for essays that capture the South in all its steamy sinfulness. For example: skipping church to watch football, coveting your neighbor’s Real Housewife of Atlanta, or just drinking an unholy amount of sweet tea.
Contest sponsors invite writers to confess their own wrongdoings, gossip about their neighbor’s depravity, or tell them about the writer’s personal connection to a famous Southerner headed down the broad road to Hell:
Whether the sin you discuss is deadly or just something that would make your mama blush, we want to hear about it in an essay that is at least partially narrative–employing scenes, descriptions, etc. Your essay can channel William Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor, Alice Walker or Rick Bragg; it can be serious, humorous, or somewhere in between, but all essays must tell true stories, and must incorporate both sin and the South in some way.
The submission deadline is July 31, 2012. The selected essays will be published in Creative Nonfiction #47, and CNF and Oxford will award $5000 for Best Essay.
Creative Nonfiction #47 will be launched at the 2013 Oxford Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference & Workshop (March 2013).
To submit, visit: www.creativenonfiction.org
Maeve Maddox
Maeve Maddox writes about English usage and public education at AmericanEnglishDoctor.com/. Her most recent publication is The Fabergé Flute, a cozy mystery novel set in 1980s London.