Prairie Schooner Writing Prize Winners for 2012
Prairie Schooner is excited to announce the winners of our annual writing prizes! A total of $8,500 is spread over eighteen prizes for work published in our 2011 volume. Prairie Schooner is able to distribute these annual prizes thanks to generous supporters of the literary arts. The highest individual prize is worth $1,500, and there is no application process.
Gregory Blake Smith of Northfield, MN, won the Lawrence Foundation Award of $1,000 for his story “Punishment” from the Spring issue. His collection of short stories The Law of Miracles—from which “Punishment” is drawn—recently won the Juniper Prize and was published in the spring of 2011 by the University of Massachusetts Press. He is the Lloyd P. Johnson Norwest Professor of English and the Liberal Arts at Carleton College.
John Lane of Spartanburg, SC, received the $1,500 Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award for his essay “Sardis” published in the Spring issue. He teaches environmental studies at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. His latest books are Best of the Kudzu Telegraph and Circling Home. This prize is made possible by the generosity of poet, publisher, and philanthropist Glenna Luschei.
William Wall of Cork City, Ireland, won the Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing of $1,000 for his novel excerpt in Prairie Schooner’s Winter issue. He is the author of three poetry collections, one short fiction collection, and four novels, the most recent of which, This Is The Country, was nominated for the 2005 Man Booker Prize. His most recent poetry collection is Ghost Estate. The Faulkner Award is supported by charitable contributions to honor Virginia Faulkner, former editor-in-chief of the University of Nebraska Press and fiction editor at Prairie Schooner.
Patrick Toland of Northern Ireland was awarded the Edward Stanley Award of $1,000 for his three poems in the Winter issue. He is a director of social enterprise, a New Media Lecturer, and a freelance journalist. A recent graduate of the new MSt in Creative Writing at Oxford University, he was selected by Windows Publications as an emerging writer in 2009. His most recent publications have been in Swamp Magazine and Fortnight Magazine. Charitable contributions from the family of Edward Stanley, a member of the committee that founded Prairie Schooner in 1926, make this award possible.
Other winners include:
• The Bernice Slote Award of $500: Melodie Edwards of Laramie, WY, for her story “Bird Lady” published in the Summer issue.
• The Annual Prairie Schooner Strousse Award of $500: Todd James Pierce of Orcutt, CA, for his two poems from the Fall issue.
• The Jane Geske Award of $250: Nuala Ní Chonchúir of Galway, Ireland, for the story “Peach” from the Winter issue.
• The Hugh J. Luke Award of $250: Roxane Beth Johnson of San Francisco, CA, for her four poems in the Spring issue.
There were ten winners of the Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Awards of $250 each. These awards are made possible through the generosity of Glenna Luschei.
• Bethany Maile, of Eagle, ID, for the essay “Ladies’ Night in the Shooting Range” in the Fall issue
• David Torrey Peters, of Evanston, IL, for the essay “God’s Entrepreneur” in the Spring issue
• Wanling Su, of Plattsburgh, NY, for the poem “Night in the Boxer Rebellion” in the Fall issue
• David Wagoner, of Lynnwood, WA, for three poems in the Fall issue
• Helen Elaine Lee, of Arlington, MA, for the story “Alphabet” in the Spring issue
• Sandra Bunting, of New Brunswick, Canada, for three poems in the Winter issue
• Owen King, of New Paltz, NY, for the story “Home Brew” in the Summer issue
• Mark Wisniewski, of Lake Peekskill, NY, for the poem “Easier” in the Fall issue
• Desirée Alvarez, of New York, NY, for two poems in the Fall issue
• Linda Pastan, of Potomac, MD, for three poems in the Fall issue
Congratulations to all of these wonderful writers! Prairie Schooner is fortunate and thankful to be able to reward many of our contributors with our annual Prairie Schooner writing prizes, made possible through the generosity of our supporters and the excellent writing of our contributors.