Have you heard about our national initiative to create a new generation of narrative nonfiction storytellers? Although we have been promoting this towards formal schools I feel we also need to reach out to homeschoolers. Please tell your members about this contest.
This initiative, organized by the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas and its partners, is conducting a national biography contest and writing seminar for high school and community college students.
The competition will provide scholarships to 10 winners and a teacher of each winner’s choice to attend the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference July 20-22 in Grapevine, Texas. The winners from last year are featured on the Dallas Morning News Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/books/20120511-mayborn-read-all-10-winning-essays.ece
The Mayborn Conference, now in its 8th year, is a gathering of renowned nonfiction storytellers from across the nation. Focusing exclusively on non-fiction, the Mayborn has risen from obscurity to become, in the words of Esquire, “one of the most vital gatherings of writers in America.” This year’s conference will explore the myriad ways in which storytellers crisscross the murky terrain between fiction, nonfiction and other genres.
Speakers include Luis Alberto Urrea, a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist who has been published extensively in all genres, including poetry; Richard Rhodes, the Pulitizer Prize-winning author and editor of 26 works of fiction, history, biography and memoir; Isabel Wilkerson, the first black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer Prize; Debby Applegate, a Pulitzer Prize winning biographer; Tom Junod, Writer-At-Large for Esquire; Jeanne Marie Laskas, a bestselling nonfiction author and journalist whose narratives in GQ, Esquire and other magazines capture the voice of her subjects more adroitly than a ventriloquist; Alisa Valdes, a former staff writer for the Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times, who has become a bestselling novelist; and many more nationally acclaimed storytellers. Harvard University published an overview of this year’s conference in its Nieman Narrative Digest: http://niemanstoryboard.us/?s=mayborn+conference
Biography Contest Details:
The competition will provide scholarships to 10 winners and a teacher of each winner’s choice to attend the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference July 20-22. The 10 winning students and their teachers will be recognized at the Mayborn Conference during our Friday night reception, and their biographies will be published in The Dallas Morning News. In addition to free conference registration and hotel accommodations, the 10 winning students will participate an all-day workshop with Pulitzer biographer, James McGrath Morris.
Our partners in this endeavor include Shirley Hammond, Barbara Bush's education director in Texas, Biographers International and Dallas-based Big Thought, a nationally renowned non-profit building partnerships that allow all children access to quality learning opportunities. The contest is funded by Lee Hancock, a freelance writer, and Jim Moroney, publisher of The Dallas Morning News.
The deadline for entering the Mayborn's Biography Contest is Friday, June 8. For more information or to register for our biography contest, please go to our website: http://journalism.unt.edu/maybornconference/student-biography-contest If you have further questions, contact our contest coordinator, Sarah Whyman, at sarah.whyman@unt.edu Her office is 940-565-4564. Her cell phone is 940-595-5508.
If you have any problems registering, contact Kimberly Taylor at ktaylor@esc6.net or by phone936-435-8275 In entering our writing competition, you and your teachers have an opportunity to attend the Mayborn Conference, rub elbows with some of America’s greatest nonfiction storytellers and get published in The Dallas Morning News. We look forward to seeing you and your teacher at our storytelling conclave in Grapevine, TX.
Sincerely,
George Getschow
Writer-in-Residence and Director
The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference
