“When you see yourself reflected in literature, it enlarges your ideas of what is possible for you.” MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient Jesmyn Ward takes PBS NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown on a tour of her hometown in Mississippi and shares the parts of her life and community that inspire her writing. Ward is the winner of the 2017 National Book Award in fiction for Sing, Unbured, Sing (Scribner, 2017).
Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.