Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society

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.