Nelson Gallery, a nine-member artist co-op in Lexington, is putting out a call for submissions for its 14th Annual Juried Show, prizes for which include a $1,000 Best in Show award. Other prizes include a Members’ Choice Award of a solo Nelson Gallery show in 2014.

The juror is painter Langdon Quin, a Washington & Lee University alum who is a professor emeritus of painting and drawing at the University of New Hampshire.

There’s an entry fee of $30 for up to three digital submissions. The deadline is June 11. For more information and to download a prospectus, visit www.Nelson-Gallery.com or call (540) 463-9827.

Click the picture to learn the details:

From my Inbox to you:

`Round the Mountain Launches First Sweepstakes

`Round the Mountain: Southwest Virginia’s Artisan Network launches its first sweepstakes April 16, 2013. The Artisan Trails of Southwest Virginia Sweepstakes will award three prize packages highlighting the region’s Artisan Trails.

Each package includes a combination of tickets to venues, overnight accommodations, gift certificates for meals, outdoor recreation, artisan demonstrations and regional crafts, highlighting the following `Round the Mountain trails:

• Clinch River and Rivers to Ridge Artisan Trails
• Countryside Artisan Trail
• Floyd, Montgomery and New River Artisan Trails

Three winners will be drawn July 16, 2013. For more information regarding the packages and rules associated with the sweepstakes, or to enter, please visit www.artisansweepstakes.com. Read more »

UPDATE: Contest organizer Josh Chapman tells me that the $500 prize money will be split between the two winners. He also tells me the contest will likely return next year.

C.L. Bledsoe, the judge in the Marginal Arts Festival’s 48-Hour Novel Contest, was apparently unable to narrow down the 22 contestants who finished the 30,000-word challenge to just one. The two winners, Olchar Lindsann’s King Jaundice and Eric Earnhart’s Tunnel, were bound together as one book — the-two-books-in-one itself being a rather pulpy tradition.

The completed cover of the book, with both winners bound in together.

I’ve asked for a clarification on what will happen with the prize money, and will update when I know.

Last year’s octopus float will be a giant sugar skull this year in the Roanoke Marginal Arts Festival Parade, which starts at noon on Saturday, March 30 at Community High School in downtown Roanoke. Anyone is welcome to join in.

MIKE ALLEN | The Roanoke Times. Marginal Arts Festival founder Brian Counihan demonstrates one of the Easter Egg masks he’s making for the festival parade on March 30.

The Roanoke Marginal Arts Festival decided not to take chances this year.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be odd, bizarre, cutting-edge art experiences mixed into the festivities. It’s the weather they don’t want to gamble on.

For the past four years, the festival has tied its schedule to Mardi Gras, which meant it sometimes has taken place in the heart of winter. Founder Brian Counihan counts his blessings that the colorful and strange Marginal Arts Parade through downtown Roanoke has never been snowed out.

“We dodged a bullet every year,” said Roanoke artist Ralph Eaton, another of the festival’s organizers. So the artists running the festival decided to move it back a few weeks. (Eaton joked that he wished it could be held April Fool’s Day.)

The lineup this year includes an appearance from the Society for Creative Anachronism, famous for wearing medieval garb and battling with rattan swords, a contest to write a novel in 48 hours, experimental poetry, experimental art, experimental theater, and workshops that might help you understand what all these experiments are getting at. “We have a lot of professional artists involved,” Counihan said.

Of course there’s the parade at noon March 30 and the absurdist street carnival that immediately follows. This year, the festival ends with Vaudeville Night, a performance at the June M. McBroom Theater in Community High School at 302 Campbell Ave. S.E. Themes for the festival include Easter eggs, the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead, and lucha libre, the sport of Mexican professional wrestling.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Festival organizers could use help decorating this giant clown shoe. Click the image to go to the Marginal Arts Festival page on Facebook.

Get ready, fellow scribblers. From my Inbox to you:

A Call to All Writers! A Call to All Illustrators!

Roanoke Pulp and Paper announces its own birth with
The 2013 Roanoke Pulp and Paper 48-Hour Novel Writing Contest Pulp Literature

Set in the great city of
Roanoke.
Prize Money of $500.00
All novels will be written between the hours of 9:00 am of Saturday, March 23^rd, 2013 and 9:00 am of Monday, March 25^th, 2013.
Thereafter, anonymous judging will commence
By the celebrated writer and former Roanoke denizen
C.L. Bledsoe, 
>Author of numerous poems, memoirs, essays, and novels including
Last Stand in Zombie Town!
The winner will be announced on March 30^th, 2013 at
Vaudeville Night
During the 2013
Marginal Arts Festival!
>Books will be printed, bound, etc., available that night!
Cover Illustrations
are therefore sought!
Covers are due simultaneously. Read more »

Hat tip, Jason Garnett, former director of The Shadowbox Cinema, who writes:

Even though The Shadowbox is defunct, I’m working with Ride Solutions to hold the 3rd Annual Bike Shorts Film Fest at the Taubman. We are are currently seeking submissions. Audience favorite wins $100. Here’s all the info: http://www.bikeroanoke.com/bikeshorts/index.shtml

Bike Shorts Film Festival 2013
Who: RIDE Solutions, The Shadowbox, Taubman Museum of Art
When: May 9th, 2013
Where: Taubman Museum of Art
For more info: Email Program Director Jeremy Holmes
Roanoke’s Bike Shorts Film Festival is now accepting submissions for the 2013 Festival, to be held in at the Taubman Museum of Art as part of Bike Month 2013!The Bike Shorts Film Festival celebrates short filmmaking of all kinds – documentary, drama, horror, drama, experimental, animation – so long as the bicycle serves as a central theme of the film. The winner of the film festival – chosen by the audience – will receive $100. Past winners of the Bike Shorts Film Festival have had their films screened at the famous Filmed by Bike Festival in Portland, Oregon. Submissions will be reviewed by The Shadowbox. Accepted submissions will be screened at the Taubman Museum of Art on May 9th, 2013, and will be posted to the Roanoke Bike Shorts YouTube Channel. To submit your film, download a copy of our submission guidelines and entry form, then deliver your final film, on DVD, to Bike Shorts Film Festival, PO Box 2569, Roanoke, VA 24010. (Blogger’s note: All films must have a final run time of 10 minutes or less. The deadline is April 20. View the entry form PDF for details on movie file formatting.) Questions about the festival, submission process, or other Bike Month activities should be directed to Jeremy Holmes, Program Director. Technical questions about file format or the film itself should be directed to Jason Garnett at The Shadowbox.

Roanoke College's Smoyer Gallery

Applications are available for the 2013 Biennial Juried Exhibition at Roanoke College’s Olin Hall Galleries.

Margot Norton, curatorial associate at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, will serve as juror. First prize is $500 and a solo exhibition in the Smoyer Gallery in Olin Hall during the 2013-14 season. Other prizes include $300 for second, $100 for third and $50 honorable mention. Entry fee is $25. Deadline is Jan. 7.

For applications, call 375-2332, email mlogan@roanoke.edu or visit http://roanoke.edu/Documents/finearts/BiennialApplication.pdf.

Vote in our Best of Holiday Shopping poll this week for a chance to win season tickets to this year’s Broadway in Roanoke (the lineup: “Shrek: The Musical,” “A Chorus Line,” “Elvis Lives,” “Dreamgirls,” “West Side Story.”) Click here to read the rules and cast your votes. Winners will be announced Monday, Sept. 10.