[These rules and guidelines can also be downloaded as a PDF here.]

The Carolina Prize for Writing, Poetry, and Art is an annual contest is sponsored by the Carolina Piedmont Writers Guild. Three prizes will be awarded: one for prose, one for poetry, and one for cover art. Up to two honorable mentions may also be named for each. This is a blind competition.

(Past winners listed at the bottom of this page.)

Winning entries will receive:

• $100.00

• Publication and recognition in the next issue of County Lines: A Literary Journal
  (The winning artwork will be featured as the cover for the issue.)

• Two copies of the journal

Honorable mentions will receive:

• Publication and recognition in the next issue of County Lines: A Literary Journal

• Two copies of the journal

General Restrictions

• Entrants can be of any age or from any location worldwide.

• Work must be original and previously unpublished (including online publication).

• No AI-generated prose, poetry, or art will be considered.

• Work may not contain erotica, violence, hate, political editorial, or excessive profanity.

• One must exclude identifying information from the work and from the filename for the work. This competition is blind.

Enter Your Work via Submittable

[ENTER HERE]

If you get lost in the interface, click “Discover” at the top of the Submittable.com interface and search for "Carolina Prize". Or just click the link above once again.

Acceptance or rejection should be completed within 4 weeks of the close of the entry window. Each volume of County Lines is published in late November or early December.

Entry Fee: $10.00 per entry (multiple entries, at $10 each, are permitted). Payment is collected via Submittable.com.

The Entries

BLIND COMPETITION: No name, address, or other identifying information can be included on the work itself or in the filename of the work.

Prose entry: only one work of prose of no more than 3,000 words, excluding title. (.docx, .doc, or .odt)

Poetry entry: only one poem of no more than 30 lines, excluding title and stanza-separations. (.docx, .doc, or .odt)

Cover Art entry: only one image. (.jpg)

Formatting the content of your work …

• WRITTEN WORKS: Author William Shunn provides an excellent resource that demonstrates standard manuscript formatting: prose and poetry. (Though, remember to leave out the identifying information.)

• ARTWORK: portrait orientation and high-quality images are best.

Filenames: we suggest a filename for your work that includes a shortened title. For example, filenames for works by Lewis Carroll, Virginia Woolf, and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) might be named as such: jabberwocky-poem.docx, haunted-house.docx, and celebrated-jumping-frog.docx.

Rights

The Carolina Prize is an independently judged competition (see below). Winners and honorable mentions will be published in County Lines. Non-winning works will NOT automatically be included in the next issue of County Lines. If your entered work does not win or receive an honorable mention, please submit it during our general, non-contest, open submissions reading window for County Lines when it opens later in the year.

By entering a work for consideration, you implicitly grant first publication rights to the Carolina Piedmont Writers Guild in the event the work is accepted for inclusion.

All proceeds from the Carolina Prize contest help fund the Carolina Piedmont Writers Guild’s efforts to promote and support the activities and endeavors of the Guild.

The Judging Process

1. Your entry is vetted by a staff member to ensure (a) the work is in a reasonable format, (b) stripped of identifying information, (c) meets our guidelines for what may be restricted. All of that is described above.
   NOTICE OF POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: That staff member (for 2026, Jackie Dove-Miller) may also enter a work in the competition. They must meet the same blind requirements.

2. Your entry fee is tracked by the treasurer, who works with the vetting staff member to ensure all funds are accounted for appropriately.
   NOTICE OF POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The treasurer (for 2026, Todd Warner) may also enter a work in the competition. They must meet the same blind requirements.

3. All entries are collected (Submittable) and examined by the applicable judge.

4. The judge chooses a winner and up to three honorable mentions.

5. All contestants are informed of the results. Honorable mentions are automatically approved for publication to the journal if they so choose.