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Larry Neal Writers' Awards
Since 1981, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities has recognized and celebrated the literary accomplishments of adult writers in the District of Columbia in four categories: poetry, fiction, dramatic writing and essay. This program also recognizes the accomplishments of young writers (ages 8 through 18) in three literary genres: poetry, fiction and essay. Cash awards and prizes are given for artistic excellence in writing for each category. The deadline for submitting works for 2008 is Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 6pm.
View application guidelines for adult writers and young writers.
The Larry Neal Writers' Awards Ceremony for 2008 occur on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 6 pm at the Elizabethan Theater of the Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 East Capitol Street, SE. View the winners for 2007.*
The Larry Neal Writers' Competition is sponsored by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
Larry Neal Biography
Born in Georgia in 1937, Neal moved to Philadelphia as a child. He gained an appreciation for all aspects of black life, such as folk tales, slang, and street chants, and used them as sources of artistic expression. He enrolled in courses at Drexel University and continued graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1963, Neal moved to New York as arts editor of The Liberator.
In 1965, Neal founded the Black Arts Repertory Theater and School with Amiri Baraka (also known as LeRoi Jones) in Harlem.
His powerful works of poetry include Hoodoo Hollerin' BeBop Ghosts and Black Boogaloo. In 1969, Neal and Baraka coedited Black Fire, the definitive anthology of the 1960s black cultural experience.
In addition to his writings, Neal was a well-respected academic. He was a professor at Yale and Wesleyan universities, received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1971, and held a chair in Humanities at Howard University. He also served as the Executive Director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities from 1976 to 1979.
At his untimely death in 1981, Neal had just finished an introduction to a three-volume series on Zora Neale Hurston's works, was collaborating on a jazz series for WGBH-TV in Boston, and had nearly completed a book on the rise of black consciousness during the 1960s.
The Larry Neal Writers' Award program commemorates his artistic legacy and vision of cultural understanding. The program's activities are among the most anticipated of the events sponsored by the Commission.
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