Writing contest for study abroad

There's a new kind of writing prize at the University of New Orleans. Three contest winners will attend a writing program at the Ezra Pound Center for Literature in Dorf Tirol, Italy, or the Writing Workshops in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Prizes are given annually to a poet, a fiction writer, and a creative nonfiction writer. The award includes full tuition and lodging, and the winning works are published in the Pinch. The editors of the Pinch will judge. Using the online submission system at the link above, submit your work with a $25 entry fee by January 31. Visit the Web site for complete guidelines.

The Walker Percy Project

Have you read any Walker Percy? I came across this website dedicated to the Alabama-born author, winner of the 1962 National Book Award for his first novel The Moviegoer. The site is a literary center with lots of information, free to the public. It's a little hard to navigate, but if you're like me and hadn't heard of Percy, it may pique your curiosity about the unusual writer. There's even an online discussion group.

Here's a quote from the website, answering the question, "Who is Walker Percy?"

"novelist of ideas

philosophical novelist

comedic satirist

cautionary moralist

diagnostician

prophetic essayist

post-modern thinker

'existentialist' Southern gentleman

ex-suicide wayfarer-pilgrim

Martian castaway [...]

None of the above/all of the above"