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: University and college professors will judge the submissions on the basis of originality, creativity, and knowledge of Rawlings’s writings.
Recognition: Winners will read their work at the annual conference. 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 (saved as a .doc or .docx—no .pdfs) to Florence Turcotte at floturc@uflib.ufl.edu
- A separate title page must include the student’s name, address, home phone, school, and teacher’s name.
The deadline for submission is March 1st every year.