NEWS RELEASE
NOWW
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THUNDER BAY -- The new year is the perfect time to make a fresh start and for writers, it’s also a perfect time to take a fresh page and turn it into something special.
The 22nd Annual Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop Writing Contest officially opens Jan. 1 and a selection of award-winning Canadian authors are once again featured on the judge’s panel.
“NOWW strives to bring some of the biggest names from the Canadian literary landscape to our contest,” said contest coordinator, Meagan Stockwell. “Our judges have won many awards including the Governor General’s Award, the Giller Prize, and the Metcalf-Rooke Award."
This year’s judges include Giller Prize winner, Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing and Dogs at the Perimeter, who is judging the short fiction category; Russell Smith, author of Noise and winner of the National Magazine Award for Fiction, who is judging the creative nonfiction category; Gwen Benaway, Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry winner and author of Ceremonies for the Dead, Passage, and Holy Wild, will be judging the poetry category; and Amy Jones, author of All In This Together, and Every Little Piece of Me, will be judging the Bill MacDonald prize for prose (nonfiction).
A new category this year is Art Review, which will be judged by Steven Beattie, the review editor at Quill & Quire magazine.
“Art Review is this unexplored category for the NOWW writing competition,” Stockwell said. “We've never considered this category before but we know this is a popular and common writing genre and I believe it will open the door to some new writers to submit to the contest. I am very excited to see what people come up with.”
Like last year, the time to enter the contest is only two months, with a deadline of Feb. 28 to submit entries. All aspiring writers, either seasoned or just starting out, are encouraged to enter.
“Contest entries do not require a NOWW membership,” Stockwell said. “We encourage all writers who are interested in either sharing their work or simply have an urge to take that fresh page and turn it into a great literary work to enter. NOWW seeks to encourage and support writers and literary artists of all skill levels and our annual contest is one of the best ways to do that."
For complete rules, regulations, and how to enter, visit the NOWW website at www.nowwwriters.ca.
