In Writers Recommend, author Alix Ohlin writes: “When I’m in direst need of inspiration, I do what I call ‘sentence stealing.’ I find a sentence from a writer I admire and write it down. ‘In the beginning I left messages in the street.’ Or, ‘Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.’ Then I write my own version of the sentence, focusing only on its rhythms: by which I mean, replacing a noun with a noun, a verb with a verb. What’s left is a ghostly echo of the original sentence with no relationship to its actual content. And I follow that new sentence wherever it takes me, down the road to an unfolding story.” Using Ohlin’s method, write a story of your own.

Choose a word or phrase you find yourself saying often (e.g. like, totally, hate, really, kind of) and write a poem using it as much as possible, turning it over and over, repositioning it, extending it, playing with its uses and the parts of speech into which it can be shaped.

The inaugural Loraine Williams Poetry Prize, sponsored by the Georgia Review, is currently open for submissions. A prize of one thousand dollars and publication in the Georgia Review will be given annually for a poem. Poets may submit up to three previously unpublished poems written in English, totaling no more than ten pages, with a fifteen-dollar entry fee by May 15. The editors will judge. 

The winning poem will be announced on August 15, and will be published in the Spring 2014 issue of the Georgia Review. Current subscribers may enter the competition free of charge; nonsubscribers may choose to begin a subscription at the time of entry—thirty-five dollars for four issues, which is five dollars less than the regular price—in lieu of the entry fee. Submissions may be sent electronically or by mail to the Georgia Review, Loraine Williams Poetry Prize, 706A Main Library, 320 South Jackson Street, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. 

Founded at the University of Georgia in 1947, the Georgia Review is a quarterly print journal of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, reviews, and visual art. “Never stuffy and never shallow,” the editors write on the magazine’s website, “the Georgia Review seeks a broad audience of intellectually open and curious readers.” Past contributors have included established writers as Rita Dove, Stephen Dunn, Louise Erdrich, Philip Levine, Barry Lopez, Joyce Carol Oates, Natasha Trethewey, David Wagoner, and Paul Zimmer, as well as many new and emerging voices. 

For more information about the Georgia Review and for complete contest guidelines, visit the website.