The 2022 issue explores North Carolina writers who teach (and teachers who write). The issue opens with Georgann Eubanks's essay on North Carolina playwright, civil rights activist, and UNC Chapel Hill Professor Paul Green, followed by letters from Peter Taylor from his Greensboro home where he taught at North Carolina Women's College (now UNC Greensboro) and Marian Janssen's John Ehle Prize essay on Carolyn Kizer's UNC Chapel Hill years. The featured interviews includes one conducted students in the Veteran to Scholar program at ECU interviewing Ben Fountain, as well as Senior Associate Editor Christy Alexander Hallberg's interview with Leah Hampton, Indiana University Kokomo Professor Jim Coby interviewing Wiley Cash, and UNC Wilmington Professor Malia Butler interviewing Khalisa Rae Thompson. The creative writing in this section includes poetry by Catherine Carter and the winner and honorees of the 2021 James Applewhite Poetry Prize, including the winning poem by Michael Loderstedt; creative nonfiction by Barbara Bennett; and fiction by Settle Monroe.

The Flashbacks and North Carolina Miscellany sections of this issue feature more creative writing: Steve Mitchell's Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize essay, Heather Bell Adams's Doris Betts Fiction Prize short story by Heather Bell Adams, more honorees from the James Applewhite Poetry Prize contest; and a poem by Frank Borden Hanes, Sr., introduced by James W. Clark, Jr. and shared with permission of the writer's family.

NCLR 31 (2022) is the 25th annual print issue under the editorship of Margaret D. Bauer, Rives Chair of Southern Literature and Distinguished Professor of Harriot College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University, where NCLR is produced, serving as an excellent opportunity for students to attain significant experience in editing and publishing.