All students attending a West Virginia high school or college are invited to compete in the annual Pearl S. Buck writing contest.

Dr. Melanie Page, West Virginia University’s Vice President for Creative Programs, announced the contest. Awards of $1,000 each will be given to an undergraduate and graduate student winner and a high school winner will receive $250 and a scholarship to the WVU English Department’s Summer Scholars program, which has a $600 value.

Applicants must submit an original writing in any literary genre (e.g., fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, essay, children’s literature, playwriting, blog, etc.) no later than April 15, 2017. Word maximum is 10,000.

Contest details and submission portal can be found here: https://research.wvu.edu/ students/pearl-s-buck-writing- contest

The late Miss Buck is one of only two American women to win both the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes for Literature. In 1892, she was born in her mother’s ancestral home, now a museum complex, in Hillsboro in Pocahontas County. Later, she wrote over 100 books dealing with both the Eastern and Western cultures and their peoples, and they have been translated into 60 foreign languages.

This contest and other related Pearl Buck activities are a joint project of the West Virginia University Libraries-Pearl Buck Manuscripts Advisory Committee, in conjunction with the Pearl Buck Birthplace Foundation and WV Wesleyan College.