Find the listings for winners, runners-up, and finalists for all categories in the 2014’s competition below.
Congratulations to this year’s competition winners and finalists!
Novel
There were 326 entries for 2014 in the Novel category. Of that total, 67 entries were from Louisiana authors. The remainder represent 19 states and four foreign countries.
The Novel category was judged by: Jeff Kleinman. Jeff is a literary agent, intellectual property attorney, and founding partner of Folio Literary Management, LLC, a New York literary agency which works with all of the major U.S. publishers and ( through subagents) with most international publishers. He’s a graduate of Case Western Reserve University (J.D.), the University of Chicago (M.A., Italian), and the University of Virginia (B.A. with High Distinction in English). As an agent, Jeff feels privileged to have the chance to learn an incredible variety of new subjects, meet an extraordinary range of people, and feel, at the end of the day, that he’s helped to build something – a wonderful book, perhaps, or an author’s career. His authors include Garth Stein, Robert Hicks, Charles Shields, Bruce Watson, Neil White, Philip Gerard, and the late Dean Faulkner Wells. His interests include nonfiction: especially narrative nonfiction with a historical bent, but also memoir, health, parenting, aging, nature, pets, how-to, nature, science, politics, military, espionage, equestrian, biography. His fiction interests include very well-written, character-driven novels; some suspense, thrillers; otherwise mainstream commercial and literary fiction. He is not interested in fiction for children, romance, mysteries, westerns, poetry, or screenplays and novels about serial killers, suicide, or children in peril (kidnapped, killed, raped, etc.)
Last year, Jeff judged the Narrative Non-Fiction Book Competition. He selected Paradise Misplaced by Alex Sheshunoff of Ojai, CA. Jeff was so enthusiastic about his winner that he signed him as a client. We have just learned that Jeff has sold Alex’s book in a lively auction to New American Library, a division of Penquin. The acquiring editor is Tracy Bernstein. Congratulations to Jeff and Alex for their success. The book will be published under a new title: Beginner’s Guide to Paradise.
2014 Novel Category
Winner:
Kitchens of the Great Midwest, J. Ryan Stradal, Los Angeles, CA
First Runner-up:
The Talented Tenth, Ladee Hubbard, Champaign, IL
Second Runner-up:
The Invention of Violet, Amy Boutell, Santa Barbara, CA
Third Runner-up:
Sunrise for Asphodel, Dan Turtel, New York, NY
Finalists
Advice for the Wicked, Glen Pitre, New Orleans, LA
A Stone for Bread, Miriam Herin, Greensboro, NC
Mask of Sanity, Jacob Appel, New York, NY
Scoop the Loop, Charles Holdefer, Brussels, Belgium
The Lenin Plot, Barnes Carr, Houston, TX
The Truth Project, Tad Bartlett, New Orleans, LA and J. Ed Marston, Chattanooga, TN
Narrative Non-Fiction
There were 310 entries for 2014 in the novel category. Of that total, 146 entries were from Louisiana authors. The remainder of the entries represent 32 states and eight foreign countries.
The Narrative Non-Fiction category was judged by Deborah Grosvenor.
Ms. Grosvenor has more than 25 years’ experience in the book publishing business as an agent and editor. During her career, she has edited or represented several hundred nonfiction books. As an editor, she acquired Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October. Her distinguished client list includes nationally prominent writers, New York Times bestselling authors, and prize-winning historians and journalists. Among them are Stephen Coonts, Eleanor Clift, Morton Kondracke, Thomas Oliphant, Charlie Engle, Harrison Scott Key, John Sexton, Henry Allen, Aaron Miller, Scott Wallace, Curtis Wilkie, Nina Burleigh, Thomas Fleming, Jonathan Green, Jay Rubenstein, Willard Randall, Mark Geragos, Peter Cozzens, Meg Noonan, Barbara Dreyfuss and Elizabeth Pryor. Deborah is interested in narrative nonfiction in the categories of history, biography, politics, current, and foreign affairs, memoir, food, the South, humor, Italy, the environment and travel. For fiction, she is simply interested in great storytelling, especially in an historical context. Deborah is the recipient of the TWIN award (Tribute to Women in Industry), given by the YWCA and industry to “outstanding women who have made significant contributions to their companies in managerial and executive positions.”She has been a part of the Faulkner Society’s annual fall festival since Word & Musicwas created and regularly judges a category of the Faulkner-Wisdom Competition.
Winner
Shakespeare’s Royal Bastard, Lawrence Wells, Oxford, MS
Equal Runners Up
Stronger, Mary Bradshaw, Flowood, MS
The Red-Headed Jewess of Oxford Road:You Can’t Imagine This Life,
Cindy Lou Levee, Baton Rouge, LA
Other Finalists
Against the Wind, Frances Haysman, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Hummingbird, Kenneth Neil Rubenstein, Hove, England, UK
Life as a Personal Trainer: Bad Music, Creepy Perverts, and Cottage Cheese,
Ken Kashubara, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Stronger, Mary Bradshaw, Flowood, MS
The Red-Headed Jewess of Oxford Road: You Can’t Imagine This Life, Cindy Lou Levee, Baton Rouge, LA
Novella
There were 133 entries for 2014 in the Novella category. Of that total, 53 entries were from Louisiana authors. The remainder represent 18 states and two foreign countries.
The Novella category was judged by Moira Crone.
Moira has published two novels and three books of stories, most recently, What Gets Into Us. Recent works of hers appear in Oxford American, Triquarterly, Habitus, and New Orleans Review. She has won the Faulkner -Wisdom Prize for Novella and the gold medal for Short Story as well from the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society. Her stories have been selected for the award anthology, New Stories From The South, five times. In 2009 she was awarded the Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction from the Southern Fellowship of Writers for the body of her work. Allan Gurganus stated in the citation, “Crone charts a zone of family resemblance and family claustrophobia. Her work can be hilarious in dealing with contemporary moral relativism; but it always holds true to abiding faith in certain primitive, reassuring pleasures. The writer’s ability to find language that approximates extreme emotional states lifts her work far above most mere quotidian realism. Moira Crone is a fable maker with a musical ear, a plentitude of nerve, and an epic heart for her beleaguered, if often witty, characters. Moira Crone’s growing reputation is richly deserved. The Warren Prize should bring this writer’s writer an even wider readership.” Her latest novel, The Not Yet, a foray into speculative fiction, was published in 2013. Valerie Martin, winner of the Orange Prize and author of Property, Mary Reilly, Trespass, and other novels, has this to say about the new novel:
Moira Crone’s simple observation that New Orleanians, like people everywhere, really want to live forever, clearly leads into a world of ethical marvels, perversities hitherto undreamed of. Her narrator, an ambitious outsider, a pure Dickensian foundling, is perfectly situated to guide the reader on a revelatory journey to where we are headed right now.
Moira also is an accomplished fine artist, who paints under the name “Mo Lion.” Some of her work currently is on exhibit at the Crescent City BrewHouse, 527 Decatur St.and can also be seen on her facebook: www.facebook.com/molionart.
Winner
Give Me You, Kay Sloan, Cincinnati, OH
Runner-up
Tickfaw to Shongaloo, Dixon Hearne, Madison, MS
Finalists
A Different Life, Philip Erickson, St. Paul, MN
Cold War, Farah Halime, Brooklyn, NY
Further, Deborah Jannerson, New Orleans, LA
Juanita, Kent Dixon, Springfield, OH
Not the Usual Sleep, Tim Knowles, Brewster, NY
Resistance, Amina Gautier, Chicago, IL
Tansy, William Thrift, Columbia, SC
The Act of Theft, Robert Raymer, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia
The Little Girls, Lori Fennell, Lake in the Hills, IL
The Year We Froze, Stan Kempton, New Orleans, La
Witness, Melanie Naphine, Frankston, Victoria, Australia
Yankees Angels , Robert H. Cox, New York, NY
Short Story
There were 311 entries for 2013 for the short story category. Of these entries 162 were fromLouisiana authors. The remainder represent 36 states and four foreign countries.
The Short Story category was judged by: The Rev. Patrick Samway, S.J. Former literary editor of America published in New York Father Samway, today divides his time between Philadelphia, PA—where he is Professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University and where he has held the Donald MacLean, S.J., Jesuit Chair for two years—and Port au Prince, Haiti, where, St. Joseph’s is in partnership with the Jesuit Order in a system of grammar schools, established by the Jesuits after the devastating earthquake. He is author of Walker Percy: A Life (1997, Farrar, Straus & Giroux), which was selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the notable books of 1997 and was a main selection of the Catholic Book Club. His biography is considered the definitive work on Walker Percy. He has edited A Thief of Peirce: The Letters of Kenneth Laine Ketner and Walker Percy (1995, University Press of Mississippi); and a volume of essays of Walker Percy entitled Signposts in a Strange Land (1991, Farrar, Straus & Giroux). With Ben Forkner he co-edited four anthologies of Southern literature: A New Reader of the Old South (1990; Penguin); Stories of the Old South (1989, Penguin); A Modern Southern Reader (1986, Peachtree Press), and Stories of the Modern South (1978, Penguin). With Michel Gresset he co-edited Faulkner and Idealism: Perspectives from Paris (1983, University Press of Mississippi).
Winner
Omeer’s Mangoes, N. West Moss, West Milford, NJ
First Runner-up
The Lindbergh Baby, Andrés Carlstein, Iowa City, IA
Second Runner-up
Sky Fire Shrine Machine, Emily Choate, Pegram, TN
Other Finalists
An Iron Lung Child, Lottie Brent Boggan, Jackson, MS
Can We Discuss This After I Am Dead, Rebecca Eder, Peoria, IL
Codes, Nancy Antle, New Haven, CT
Den of Rhyme, Craig Faris, Rock Hill, SC
Ferocious Faith, Bruce Wexler, Elmhurst, IL
First Things First, Teddy Jones, Friona, TX
Flock Apart, Tad Bartlett, New Orleans, LA
Happy Story, Brendan Minihan, Jr., New Orleans, LA
Indelible Myth, William Coles, Salt Lake City, UT
Infidelity, Kirsty Gunn, London, England, UK
Kirkegaard in the Desert, Charles Broome, New Orleans, LA
Kiss Him for Me, Richard Gazala, New Orleans, LA
Love and Other Birds, Nancy Rowe, New Orleans, LA
Mustang Sally and her Road Rage Zen, Robert Hambling Davis, Newark, DE
My Uncle’s Arm, Paul Negri, Clifton, NJ
Rich Women on Wednesdays, Michael Devault, Monroe, LA
The Boy Who Would Be Oloye, Maurice Ruffin, New Orleans, LA
The Last View of Delft, June English, Baton Rouge, LA
The Man Who Feared Women, Paul Negri, Clifton, NJ
The Twilight Club, Leslee Becker, Fort Collins, CO
Three Graces and A Tractor Beam, Armand St. Martin, New Orleans, LA
Through The Body of Mary, Joyce Miller, Cincinnati, OH
Novel-in-Progress
There were 303 entries for 2014 in the Novel-in-progress category. Of that total, 123 entries were from Louisiana authors. The remainder represent 31 states and sevent foreign countries.
The Novel-in-Progress category was judged by M. O. Walsh.
Walsh, a writer from Baton Rouge, LA, won the Faulkner Society ’s 2011 Gold Medal for best Novel-in- Progress. His manuscript, Whiteflies, selected by literary agent Jeff Kleinman of Folo Literary Management, who judged. He since has completed and sold this novel (now called My Sunshine Away) to Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam. Foreign rights already have been sold tto UK, Brazil, Israel, Italy, and the Netherlands! The book is due out in Spring, 2015. Currently, M. O. is running the UNO Writers Workshop (MFA) program at the University of New Orleans. His fiction and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Oxford American, Epoch and American Short Fiction, among others, and been anthologized in Best New American Voices, Best of the Net, Louisiana in Words, and Bar Stories. His first book, the short story collection The Prospect of Magic, won the Tartt’s First Fiction Prize, was a Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award in General Fiction, and was an Editor’s Pick for Best Book of 2010 by Oxford American. Currently, he teaches for The Creative Writing Workshop at The University of New Orleans where he also serves as Fiction Editor for the literary journal Bayou. M. O. has “a wife named Sarah, a daughter named Magnolia,a dog named Gus, and is happy.”
Winner
All of the Lights, Maurice Ruffin, New Orleans, LA
First Runner-up
Dove on the Door, N. West Moss, West Milford, NJ
Second Runner-up
Plexus, Krista Wilson, Washington, DC
Third Runner-up
The Other Side, Jacob Appel, New York, NY
Finalists
A Delicate Dance, Austin Gary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Beautiful Men and Me, Robin Martin, Brooklyn, NY
Broken, Janet Taylor-Perry, Ridgeland, MS
Fire on the Island, Timothy Jay Smith, Nice, France
For Every Man, A Country, Dan Turtel, New York, NY
Magdalena, Candi Sary, Costa Mesa, CA
Melting the Blues, Tracy, Chiles McGhee, Washington, DC
Mabel, M. L. Dunser, Columbia, MS
Nostalgia’s Eternal Serenade, Nishith Singh, Lafayette, LA
Sea Butcher, Brent Benoit, New Orleans, LA
The Escapists, John Vanderslice, Conway, AR
The Final Voyage of Odysseus, Joel Freiburger, Glen Elyn, IL
The Independent Contractor, Matthew Minson, Spring, TX
The Miser, Shane Finkelstein, New Orleans, LA
This Year’s Girl, Geoff Schutt, Chestnut Hill, MA
You Remind Me of Someone, Ledia Xhoga, Brooklyn, NY
Essay
There were 101 entries for 2014 in the Essay category. Of the total, 41 entries were from
Louisiana authors. The remainder represented 16 states and three foreign countries.
The Essay category was judged by Jane Satterfield.
Jane won the Faulkner Society’s Gold Medal for Best Essay and iis author of the recently released narrative non-fiction book, Daughters of Empire: A Memoir of a Year in Britain and Beyond. A highly accomplished poet, her most recent collection is Her Familiars, published in 2013 by Elixir Press. She is the author of two previous books of poems: Assignation at Vanishing Point, and Shepherdess with an Automatic. Her other awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry, the Florida Review Editors’ Prize in nonfiction, and the Mslexia women’s poetry prize. In 2013, she was awarded the49th Parallel Poetry Prize from The Bellingham Review for her poem Elegy with Trench Art and Asanas. Satterfield is the literary editor for the Journal of the Motherhood Initiative and she teaches at Loyola University Maryland.
In a lengthy review praising Jane’s work, The Common, an on-line journal, had this to say:
Throughout her impressive body of work, which includes three collections of poetry and a memoir, Jane Satterfield explores the roles of place and gender in human identity.
Winner
Swerves, Marilyn Moriarity, Roanoke, VA
Runner-Up
A History of Motion, Maurice Ruffin, New Orleans, LA
Other Finalists
Age Compression, Anne Webster, Atlanta, GA
A Trip to the Post Office, C. W. Cannon, New Orleans, LA
Desdemona, Kathleen Nolan Grieshaber, Metairie, LA
Gathering Around the Table, Stephanie Bond, Auburn, AL
Good Fences, Michael DeVault, Monroe, LA
Invisible, Pat Gallant, New York, NY
Hidden, Virginia Campbell, New Orleans, A
My Father’s Sad Story About the War, Ruth Moon Kempher, St. Augustine, FL
Remarry, Janet Taylor-Perry, Ridgeland, MA
Remembering Saleem, Patricia Saik, Bay St. Louis, MS
Shedding History, Jacqueline Guidry, Kansas City, MO
Sincerely, Mary Bradshaw, Flowood, MS
Tyrone Power: The Myth Who Dared to Live, Dr. Henry Hoffman, Gretna, LA
War Effort, Lottie Brent Boggan, Jackson, MS
Without Regret, Stan Kempton, New Orleans, LA
Poetry
There were 178 entries in the 2014 poetry category. Of the total entries, 86 were from Louisiana poets. The remainder of the entries came from 22 states and four foreign countries.
The Poetry category if being judged by Marjory Wentworth.
Marjory, Poet Laureate of South Carolina, has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize for poetry five times. Her books of poetry include Noticing Eden, Despite Gravity, and The Endless Repetition of an Ordinary Miracle.
She is the co-writer with Juan Mendez of Taking a Stand, The Evolution of Human Rights,the book was nominated for 2013 WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America)/Duke Human Rights Book Award, and the 2011 SIBA (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance) award (category-nonfiction). She is the co-editor with Kwame Dawes of Seeking, Poetry and Prose inspired by the Art of Jonathan Green, and the author of the prizewinning children’s story Shackles. Shackles, was also nominated for 2010 SIBA (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance) Award for Best Book (category-children’s and young adult). Shackles, is the winner of Silver Medal in the 2009 Moonbeam Children’s Book awards for multi-cultural children’s books. Her latest book, New and Selected Poems, was published by the University of South Carolina Press in March, 2014. Marjory teaches poetry in the Engaging Creative Minds program of the Charleston County school system and she is on the faculty of the Art Institute of Charleston, SC. She is the co-founder and President of the Lowcountry Initiative for the Literary Arts, and she serves on the board of directors of The Poetry Society of South Carolina. She has collaborated extensively with visual artists and composers. Her poems have been displayed at The National Science Foundation, Duke University Museum of Art, and The Gibbes Museum. Her work is included in the South Carolina Poetry Archives at Furman University.
Winner
Flutter and Whir, Claire Dixon, Baton Rouge, LA
First Runner-Up
For John Parker, Daniel Dwyer, Abita Springs, LA
Second Runner-up
Flying, Constance Boyle, Arvado, CO
Other Finalists
Aftermath – A Soldier’s Story In Three Parts, Stan Kempton, New Orleans, LA
Bummer, Nettie Parker Bauman, West Hartford, CT
Carpe Diem, M. L. Dunser, Columbia, MS
Changing Lines, Craig Black, Darrow, LA
Deadly Dandelion Dreams, Helen Archeris, Newark, NJ
Electric Mail, Julie E. Bloemeke, Alpharetta, GA
First Crush, Jacob Appel, New York, NY
On Your Ninety-Second Birthday, Count Backward by Ones,
Belinda Straight,
Grief, Tina Hayes, Washington, DC
Imagined Chaos, Jennifer Moffett, Ocean Springs, MS
L’Ombre De L’Avenir, Stephen Thomas Roberts, Lagrangeville, NY
Lost Love Lounge, Cassie Pruyn, New Orleans, LA
My Inner Child, Leslie Daniels, Thorold, Ontario, Canada
Of Cork and Feathers, Melinda Palacio, Santa Barbara, CA
Presence, James, Bourey, Dover, DE
Returning to that Mineral State, Nancy Dafoe, Homer, NY
Saturday Stops, J. Ed Marston, Chatanooga, TN
Sleep on a Clothesline, Faith Garbin, Ocean Springs, MS
The Catch, Mary Louise Nix, Mandeville, LA
The Homeless Trilogy, Pat Gallant and Paul Saluk, New York, NY
The Kiss, Petra Perkins, Highlands Ranch, CO
Thunder on the Edge of Silence, Larkin Edwin Greer, New York, NY
Lo Que Queda/What Remains, Maria Beruvides & Maria O’Connell, Lubbock, TX
Winter Flight, Yvonne Ellingson, Mill Valley, CA
Short Story by a High School Student
There were 166 entries in the High School Short Story Category. Of that number 87 were from Louisiana writers. The remainder represented 12 states and four foreign countries.
The High School Story category was judged by George Bishop.
Author of the new novel, The Night of the Comet, George holds an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and studied writing with author and professor John Biguenet at Loyola University. After eight years of acting in commercials, stage plays, and guest starring roles in TV sitcoms, he traveled overseas and spent most of the last decade living and teaching in Slovakia, Turkey, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, India, and Japan.Currently, he has a teaching assignment in India. His stories and essays have appeared in publications such as The Oxford American, The Third Coast, Press, and American Writing. His debut novel, released three years ago, was the widely acclaimed Letter to My Daughter. George, who now makes is permanent home in the historic Bywatter neighborhood of downtown New Orleans, is a regular member of the faculty for Words & Music and has twice previously been a final round judge for the William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. For more on George and his work, visit his website at www.georgebishopjr.com.
Winner
Phases, Adia Heisser, New Orleans, LA
First Runner-up
Fly Away, Kimberly Pollard, Belle Chasse, LA
Second Runner-up
And So He Drifted, Rachel Marbaker, Colorado Springs, CO
Third Runner-up
The Monsters That Hide in Tin Houses, Luis Eduardo Bermudez Ham, Guadalajara, Mexico, and Idyllwild, CA
Finalists
A Dead World: Val, Hannah Lam, Metairie, LA
Andre, Sarah Rolinsky, Covington, LA
A Rural Recalculation, Laura Hausman, New York, NY
A Shooting Star Runs Through Everything, Knox Van Horn, New Orleans, LA
City in the Sky, Lisa Jackson, New Orleans, LA
Defiance, Anna Marie Beard, Collierville, TN
Empire, Helen Lovett, New Orleans, LA
Haunt, Peyton Brunet, New Orleans, LA
Money Road, Alex Gracen Hendon, Mandeville, LA
Monochromatic, Magda Andrews-Hoke, Philadelphia, PA
Oh Writers, Writers, Ana Maria Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, Mexico City, Mexico
Puzzles, Marisa Clogher, New Orleans, LA
Sententia, Jordan Blanchard, New Orleans, LA
The Deadbolt Man, Kinsey Presley-Hornung, Bloomington, IN
Settling Dust, Emily Cameron, Idyllwild, CA
The Extra Closet, Genevieve Lovern, Abita Springs, LA
The Peephole, Madeleine Granovetter, Glen Ridge, NJ
The Pretty One, Claudia Leger, Slidell, LA
Those Girls, Taylor Triplett, New Orleans, LA