High school juniors invited to enter short fiction scholarship contest

High school juniors in North Carolina are invited to submit a piece of original short fiction for the annual Wade Edwards Short Fiction scholarship contest.

The deadline for submissions for the contest is May 1. The contest is sponsored by the Wade Edwards Foundation and supported and administered by the North Carolina English Teachers Association and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

The three student scholarships, along with a gift to the top winner's English Department, total $10,000. For the first time, there also will be eight regional winners. Public, private, charter and home school students are encouraged to apply.

"The scholarship rewards excellence in creative writing and encourages the contemplation of virtues associated with Wade Edwards: humility, strength of convictions, loyalty, honor, charity, determination, the value of family, and the obligations of friendship and community," a press release says.

Wade is the son of former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and Elizabeth Edwards, who died in 2010. Wade died in a car accident at age 16 in 1996. Shortly before his death, he was honored at the White House as a finalist in another essay contest.