Conferences
Middle & High School Writing Contest
The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society, an organization of over 250 members worldwide, invites middle and high school students to submit a story or a poem on any aspect of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s work. Possible topics might include the following:
- Landscape and character in Rawlings’s fiction and/or non-fiction
- The struggle for existence in Rawlings’s Cross Creek and/or The Yearling
- The Yearling as a coming-of-age story
- Rawlings and film
- Rawlings’s Cracker characters
- Sex and gender roles in Rawlings’s fiction
- Rawlings’s portrayal of Florida
- Concern for the environment in Rawlings’s work
Reading assignment: The Yearling, South Moon Under, Cross Creek, The Sojourner, Golden Apples, or any of Rawlings’s poems or short stories.
Judging: English professors in University of Central Florida Department of English will be judging the submissions on the basis of originality, creativity, and knowledge of Rawlings’s writings.
Recognition: Winners will read their work at the XXV Annual Meeting of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society, at the Ocala-Hilton Hotel, 3600 SW 36th Avenue, Ocala 34474. Their work will also be published in The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society Newsletter. Parents or guardians will be asked to sign a permission form giving the MKR Society permission to publish their student’s work.
Rules:
- Entries may be either a story, a poem, or an essay.
- Poems must be 100 to 250 words in length.
- Short stories or essays must be 500 to 700 words in length.
- Papers must be typed and double spaced.
- Send an email copy in MS Word to Anna.Lillios@ucf.edu
- A separate title page must include the student’s name, address, home phone, school, and teacher’s name.
Dr. Anna Lillios
Department of English
University of Central Florida
P. O. Box 161346
Orlando, FL 32816-1346
or
Anna@ucf.edu
The deadline for submission is March 15 every year.