The Christian County Literacy Council is accepting submissions of poetry and prose (fiction and nonfiction) through Feb. 15 for the bell hooks Memorial Writing Contest.
The contest is named for Hopkinsville native Gloria Watkins, whose pen name was bell hooks. The contest theme this year is memories.
“The holidays are a great time for reminiscing about treasured memories,” contest organizers said in a Facebook post. “Put your cherished moments into writing and enter them in this year’s bell hooks memorial writing contest!”
Born in Hopkinsville in 1952, hooks attended segregated schools for Black students during most of her childhood. She graduated from Hopkinsville High School in 1970, a few years after local schools were integrated. She wrote more than 30 books on topics ranging from feminism and Black culture to love, regionalism, racism and politics. She also wrote several children’s books.
Several years after she returned to Kentucky to teach at Berea College, hooks was named to the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame in 2018. She died on Dec. 15, 2021, at the age of 69.
The contest has four age divisions — 5 to 8, 9 to 12, 13 to 17, and adult. Rules of the contest are available online. Writers of all ages are invited to submit short- or long-form entries. Short form is up to 1,000 words and long form is anything longer than 1,000 words. Each writer may submit one entry, and all writers must be residents of Kentucky.
The deadline to submit an entry was originally Jan. 31, but the literacy council extended the deadline until Feb. 15.
Additional information is available by emailing the literacy council at bellhookswritingcontestcclc@gmail.com.
