Deadline Approaching for Norton Girault Literary Prize Submissions

February 22, 2013

Less than a month remains for aspiring poets to submit work for consideration in the 2013 Norton Girault Literary Prize competition.

The stakes: $1,000 for the winning poem and $200 for honorable mention. The two top poems will also be featured in Barely South Review, the literary journal of Old Dominion University's M.F.A. program in creative writing.

The literary competition, in which the annual prize alternates between fiction, poetry and nonfiction genres, was opened to submissions in January with a deadline of March 15. Complete guidelines, including a required cover sheet, are available at Barely South Review. Failure to follow guidelines will result in disqualification from the competition.

Jeff Wojahn, a Virginia Commonwealth University English professor who is also a member of the program faculty of the M.F.A. in writing program at Vermont College of the Fine Arts, will judge the 2013 Norton Girault Literary Prize. Wojahn's work, for which he was once a Pulitzer Prize finalist, has appeared in numerous publications and won several awards. He won the Academy of American Poets' 2012 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, which recognizes the most outstanding book of poetry published in the United States during the previous year.

ODU's competition honors Norton Girault, a writer and retired Navy captain who taught English for 15 years at Norfolk State University and participated in ODU writing courses. He is considered a vital part of the Hampton Roads literary community.