Following the success of last year's writing contest, this year's festival team has decided to
host another contest as part of the Notre Dame Literary Festival! This year's theme: "Spoof
Your Favorite Classic Novel with an ND Twist." As the theme evidences, we are calling
upon creative, humorous writers from all university departments to submit an original
prose piece that transforms the work of a classic novelist into a contemporarily relevant,
Notre Dame focused story. While each submission does not necessarily have to follow
the events within a particular scene from the novel (although this is an option), each
submission must reference the novel through character names, recognizable features of
the setting, and tone of the work. To make the contest more challenging, we are also asking
students to transport the action of their stories to Notre Dame or the South Bend area.
Basically, when our judges read the submissions, we want them to know which classic
novel you have chosen to reinvent from an ND perspective!
So bring on the humor galore! Your prize for blowing away our judges? A novel signed by
our visiting author as well as inclusion in the festival program. With these great incentives,
why wouldn't you want to share your story with us?
Happy Writing!
The Notre Dame Literary Festival Team
Basic Guidelines:
-Only one submission per student
-Submissions must not exceed 10 pages
-Submissions will not be accepted after December 8th, 2012
-All submissions or general inquires should be sent to sub@nd.edu with the subject line "NDLF | Writing Contest Submission"
-The festival team will notify the authors of the top three essays, as chosen by our judges,
over winter break.
Fall/Winter 2012 Writing Contest
Daniel Borzutzky
Daniel Borzutzky is the author of The Book of Interfering Bodies (Nightboat, 2011); The Ecstasy of Capitulation (BlazeVox, 2007) and Arbitrary Tales (Ravenna Press, 2005). His translations include Raul Zurita's Song for his Disappeared Love (Action Books, 2010) and Jaime Luis Huenun's Port Trakl (Action Books, 2008), among others. His work has been anthologized in, among others, A Best of Fence: The First Nine Years (Fence Books); Seriously Funny (University of Georgia Press, 2010); and Malditos Latinos Malditos Sudacas: Poesia Iberoamericana Made in USA (El billar de Lucrecia, 2010). Journal publications include Fence, Denver Quarterly, Conjunctions, Chicago Review, TriQuarterly, and many others. Chapbooks include Failure in the Imagination (Bronze Skull, 2007) and One Size Fits All Scantily Class Press, 2009). He lives in Chicago.
Jaimy Gordon
Jaimy Gordon is the author of six books, most recently the National Book Award-winning novel Lord of Misrule (McPherson & Co, 2010), set in the world of small-time West Virginia horse racing. The novel was also a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist and won the Dr. Tony Ryan Award for the year's best book about horse racing. Gordon's novel She Drove Without Stopping (Algonquin, 1990) was awarded an Academy-Institute Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Bogeywoman (2000) was named an LA Times Best Book of the year. Shamp of the City-Solo, her first novel, has long been considered an underground classic by her fans. Her short story "A Night's Work," which provided part of the inspiration for Lord of Misrule, appeared in the Best American Short Stories 1995. Her short fiction, poems, essays, and translations have appeared in the Colorado Review, Missouri Review, Ploughshares, Antioch Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry International, and many other journals.
Bonnie Jo Campbell
kdelamon@nd.edu
Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of the novel Once Upon a River (July 2011, W.W. Norton). She was a 2009 National Book Award finalist and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for her collection of stories, American Salvage. Campbell is the author of the novel Q Road and the story collection Women & Other Animals. She's received the AWP Award for Short Fiction, a Pushcart Prize, and the Eudora Welty Prize, and she has been awarded a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Blake Butler
Blake Butler's most recent books are There is No Year and Nothing. He edits HTML Giant and lives in Atlanta.
Past 2012 NDLF events
Rachel McKibbens and Mindy Nettifee: In October, two veterans of the slam poetry scene, Rachel McKibbens and Mindy Nettifee, visited Notre Dame as one stop on their nationwide tour. Titled "The Last Nerve: A High Tea Poetry Brawl," McKibbens and Nettifee burst onto campus armed with teacups, lace handkerchiefs, brashness, and a powerful performance energized by their feminist poetry. Both questioning and asserting the identity of female artists, McKibbens and Nettifee also shared emotional experiences influencing their own artistic journeys.
McKibbens and Nettifee both gave energetic, raw, and exciting performances, and everyone who attended the performance spoke about how much they enjoyed the act's uniqueness. The poetry slam began a great year for NDLF!