Prairie Schooner News

Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is pleased to announce that our 2015 Book Prize Winners’ books are now available from the University of Nebraska Press and wherever books are sold.

Cannibal by Safiya Sinclair won the 2015 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, receiving $3000 and publication by the University of Nebraska Press. Called a “stunning debut collection” in a starred Publishers Weekly review and powered by the teeming intellect and ravishing lucidity of a young poet in full possession of her literary power” by poet Major Jackson, Cannibal was chosen by guest-judges David Baker and Hilda Raz with Editor-in-Chief Kwame Dawes. Safiya Sinclair was born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and has published work in numerous journals and been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a 2016 Whiting Award. She is currently pursuing a PhD in literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California, where she is a Dornsife Doctoral Fellow.

One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist by Dustin M. Hoffman won the 2015 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, receiving $3000 and publication by the University of Nebraska Press. The collection, described by Matt Bell as “heartfelt and humorous and always keen to the ways our working lives serve to reveal our more personal hopes and dreams” and praised by Publishers Weekly as “a thoroughly memorable read, was selected chosen by guest-judges Elizabeth Nunez and Bernardine Evaristo with Editor-in-Chief Kwame Dawes. Dustin M. Hoffman spent ten years painting houses in Michigan before earning an MFA from Bowling Green State University and a PhD from Western Michigan University. His stories have recently appeared in numerous publications, and he is an assistant professor of creative writing at Winthrop University in South Carolina.

Both Sinclair and Hoffman will visit the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s campus this coming spring to for Prairie Schooner’s Annual Book Prize Reading and Celebration. Be sure to get your copy before then!

Cannibal and One-Hundred Knuckled Fist are available for purchase on the University of Nebraska Press’ website. To purchase Cannibal, click here. To purchase One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist, click here.

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Danielle Pringle was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, and is currently pursuing an MA in creative writing with a secondary focus in Medieval & Renaissance studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Thanks to generous supporters of the literary arts, Prairie Schooner was able to award eighteen writing prizes totaling $8,500 for work published by established and emerging writers in 2015.

Laura Van Prooyen of San Antonio received the $1,500 Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award for her five poems published in the Fall 2015 issue. Her collection of poetry Our House Was on Fire received the Robert McGovern Memorial Prize and was published by Ashland Poetry Press in 2015. The Glenna Luschei Award is made possible by the generosity of poet, publisher, and philanthropist Glenna Luschei.

The $1,000 Lawrence Foundation Award for the best short story published in Prairie Schooner in 2015 was given to Ezra Olson of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, for his story “Marco Polo” from the Fall 2015 issue. This prize is made possible by the Lawrence Foundation of New York City and its director, Leonard S. Bernstein.

The $1,000 Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing was given to Lawrence Lenhart of Flagstaff, Arizona and his essay “The Well-Stocked and Gilded Cage: Psittaculture Nervosa” from the Summer 2015 issue. His collection of essays will be published by Outpost19 in August. The Faulkner Award is supported by charitable contributions to honor Virginia Faulkner, former editor-in-chief of the University of Nebraska Press and Prairie Schooner fiction editor.

The $1,000 Edward Stanley Award for poetry was given to Charif Shanahan for four poems in the Summer 2015 issue. His poetry collection Into Each Room We Enter Without Knowing will be published by Southern Illinois University Press in spring 2017. This award is made possible through charitable contributions from the family of Edward Stanley, a member of the committee that founded Prairie Schooner in 1926.

The $500 Bernice Slote Award for the best work by a beginning writer was given to Dima Alzayat for the story “In the Land of Kan’an” from the Fall 2015 issue. She is a freelance journalist whose articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Flaunt, and the Skinny. The Slote Award is supported by the estate of Bernice Slote, Prairie Schooner editor from 1963 through 1980.

The $500 Annual Prairie Schooner Strousse Award for the best poem or group of poems was given to Aracelis Girmay of New York for four poems in the Fall 2015 issue. Her previous work includes the collage-based picture book changing, changing and poetry collections Teeth and Kingdom Animalia. The Strousse Award is given in honor of Flora Strousse.

The $250 Hugh J. Luke Award was given to Natalie Diaz for her essay “A Body of Athletics” in the special Winter 2015 sports issue, of which Diaz was guest editor. She currently spends time in Mohave Valley, Arizona, where she works to revitalize the Mojave language. The Hugh J. Luke Award was established in memory of Prairie Schooner’s editor from 1980 through 1987.

The $250 Jane Geske Award was given to Sarah Cornwell of Los Angeles for her story “Mr. Legs” from the Spring 2015 issue. Her debut novel, What I Had Before I Had You was published in 2014, and her stories have appeared in the 2013 Pushcart Prize anthology and Missouri Review, among others. The award is given by Norman Geske in honor of his wife, Jane Geske, a lifelong support of Nebraska’s literary arts.

Ten writers received annual Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Awards for $250 each. These awards are made possible through the generosity of Glenna Luschei.

Martha Collins, of Cambridge, MA, for her five poems in the summer issue.
Tyree Daye, of Raleigh, NC, for three poems in the fall issue.
Emily Geminder, of Kansas City, MO, for her essay “Coming To: A Lexicology of Fainting” in the summer issue.
Gregory Pardlo, of Brooklyn, NY, for his essay “Cartography” in the fall issue.
Adrienne Celt, of Tucson, AZ, for the story “The Girls They Burned” in the summer issue.
Matthew Dickman, of Portland, OR, for his poem “Can We Have Our Ball Back” in the winter issue.
Eileen Myles, of Brooklyn, NY, for the poem “Joseph Father of Wales” in the winter issue.
Sujata Shekar, of New York, NY, for the story “Throw Away Nothing” in the fall issue.
Aurvi Sharma, of New York, NY, for the essay “Eleven Stories of Water and Stone” in the spring issue.
Safiya Sinclair, of Los Angeles, CA, for four poems in the summer issue.

Prairie Schooner is published with support from the University of Nebraska Press, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln English Department and its creative writing program, and the Glenna Luschei Endowed Editorship and Fund for Excellence at Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska Foundation. Subscriptions may be ordered by visiting http://prairieschooner.unl.edu. You can also follow Prairie Schooner on Twitter and Facebook.

The Winter 2015 edition of Prairie Schooner is now available and arriving in subscribers’ mailboxes. This sports-themed issue, guest-edited by poet Natalie Diaz, features poetry, fiction, and essays from Sherman Alexie, Eileen Myles, Porochista Khakpour, Meghan O’Rourke, Afaa Weaver, Danez Smith, Chip Livingston, Ada Limon, Terrance Hayes, and more.
 
In the essay that opens the issue, Diaz writes, “Before every basketball game, from rec league to high school, my mother told me, Knock ‘em dead. She never said, Good luck.” From here, the issue unfolds in energetic and varied voices, examining sports in all their pain and glory, the competition, self-discipline, violence, and victory.
 
Diaz has assembled a stunningly diverse and talented range of contributors for this issue. Featured poet Sherman Alexie is the author of numerous books of poetry, most recently What I’ve Stolen, What I’ve Earned, as well as First Indian on the Moon and The Summer of Black Widows. He is also the author of numerous works of fiction and served as editor for  Best American Poetry 2015. Russian poet Vera Pavlova’s poem “Russian Sport” also appears, in a translation by Valzhyna Mort with Ilya Kaminsky. Other featured poets include Danez Smith, winner of the 2014 Lambda Literary Award, Terrance Hayes, winner of the 2010 National Book Award, Jon Davis, director of the low-residency MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, L. Lamar Wilson, whose work has appeared in Rattle and Muzzle, and Kamilah Aisha Moon, whose recent work has appeared in the Awl and Chapter Sixteen.
 
Prose writers in the issue include Carmiel Banasky, whose novel The Suicide of Bishop Claire debuted in September of this year. Also featured is “SkateTown USSR,” by Amber Dermont, author of Damage Control, The Starboard Sea, and A Splendid Wife. Nonfiction authors appearing in this edition include Meghan O’Rourke, author of The Long Goodbye, and Porochista Khakpour, author of The Last Illusion.
 
To discover more from our talented contributors, check out their work in the newest issue. To learn more about Prairie Schooner and how to subscribe, visit https://prairieschooner.unl.edu.

Prairie Schooner is pleased to announce that Laura Woollett is the winner of the 2015 Summer Nonfiction Contest, judged by Rigoberto González, for her essay “Working Girl.” Woollett will receive a prize of $250, and her essay will appear in the Spring 2016 edition of Prairie Schooner.

Laura Elizabeth Woollett lives in Melbourne, Australia. She is the author of a novel, The Wood of Suicides (The Permanent Press, 2014), and a short fiction collection, The Love of a Bad Man (Scribe Publications, forthcoming 2016). This year, she was a semifinalist in the 2015 Script Pipeline TV Writing Competition and was featured as one of Melbourne Writers Festival’s “30 Under 30.” She is currently at work on her second novel, Beautiful Revolutionary, about a young couple who enter the orbit of Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple in late 60’s California. Her website is lauraelizabethwoollett.com

Rigoberto González, the judge of this year’s prize, is the author of four books of poetry and ten books of prose, including three books of nonfiction. He is also a recipient of Guggenheim, NEA, and USA Rolón fellowships and numerous other awards. González said of Woollet’s essay:

“This short piece compressed so much richness into the world of its adolescent narrator that it’s difficult to believe it is only a few pages in length. The irony is that one of this young narrator’s struggles is her anxiety that her world will not expand, not as a working-class girl from a broken home, and that she is doomed to the fate of the women in her factory community—unrewarding, repetitive labor. But through these women she also begins to embrace the edgy humor and language that reveals how complex women’s lives can be….This coming-of-age portrait is more than a story about teenage angst. It is about the spaces women create (and nurture) to transcend limitations and to dream beyond the present day.”

Marcos Gonsalez’s essay “Brown Atlas” is this year’s runner-up. Rigoberto González said he appreciated “the honesty of this essay, how it dared to explore the theme of shame: shame for one’s ancestry, shame for one’s sexuality, and shame for feeling ashamed.” Marcos Gonsalez’s work has appeared Duende Literary Magazine and will appear in the forthcoming Latino/a Rising: An Anthology of U.S. Latino/a Speculative Fiction. He is currently pursuing a PhD in English at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is on Twitter @MarcosSGonsalez.

Editor Kwame Dawes said of the contest, which enters its fifth year in 2016, "Our nonfiction prize has managed to do what we hoped it would when we started it a few years ago—to raise the profile of nonfiction in our journal and to bring much needed attention to the beautiful work done by writers of nonfiction. This year’s winner is no exception. This short, punch essay is chock-full of insights and beautifully written.”

Last year’s winner was Aurvi Sharma, whose essay “Eleven Stories of Water and Stone” appeared in the Spring 2015 edition of Prairie Schooner. The previous year’s winner, Melissa Febos’s essay “Call My Name,” was listed as a 2015 Best American Notable. To read Assistant Nonfiction Editor Sarah Fawn Montgomery’s interview with Rigoberto González, visit http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/blog/nonfiction-most-intimate-space-inter.... To learn more about Prairie Schooner, the latest issues, and how to subscribe, visit http://prairieschooner.unl.edu.