The Faulkner Society has been very successful at selecting finalists who meet the key competition guideline, “ready for publication,” and helping winners and finalists find agents and publishers. The proof lies in how many of our winners and finalists go on to be published and receive national recognition for their work. That’s 12 GOOD REASONS to enter this year’s Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Competition!
Robin Black
Robin Black, photographed by Marion Ettlinger, won the Society’s 2005 gold medal for Best Short Story. Her first story collection, If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, has been published by Random House, available in bookstores now. Robin will be a member of the faculty for Words & Music, 2010, leading a discussion, entitled: Late Bloomers.
Jane Satterfield, a superb writer who won the Faulkner Society’s Gold Medal for Best Essay in 2007 for her manuscript, The Crooked Track, expanded the essay into a full length memoir, which has now been published as Daughters of Empire: A Memoir of a Year in Britain and Beyond. A thoughtful and emotionally charged memoir of pilgrimage and transformation.
Rachel Stolzman, who was runner up in the novel category in 2005, has published her novel, The Sign for Drowning. Rachel, who was born in New York, grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from the University of Southern California and received her MFA in creative writing-fiction from Sarah Lawrence College.
C. Robert Holloway
C. Robert Holloway was a short list finalist for his novella, Wretched Excess, a series of nine linked short stories, in the 2009 Faulkner – Wisdom Competition. The book has been published and may be ordered through Faulkner House Books, (504) 586-1609. C. Robert, as he prefers to be called, has worked as a designer in films, TV, Commercials, Music Videos, Opera and Theatre. His production design for Two Soldiers, the film based on a Faulkner short story, is credited for helping it win the 2004 Academy Award. The New Orleans premiere for the film was hosted by the Faulkner Society during Words & Music festivities. The Society will rescreen Two Soldiers at Words & Music, 2010. The screening will follow a discussion of Faulkner’s first novel, Soldiers’ Pay, a story of the trauma of re-entering American life upon returning from from WWI. C. Robert is a faculty member for Words & Music, 2010.
Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Linda Watanabe McFerrin, a past winner of the Katherine Ann Porter Prize for fiction and who was short listed for finalist in the 2007 competition for her novel Dead Love, has sold her book and it will be
published in the Fall by Stonebridge Press. Dead Love is a supernatural thriller that follows a cast of nefarious characters—both human and otherworldly—as they foul and foil one another’s plans and power plays in a conspiracy of global proportions. Linda, who teaches and leads workshops in fiction and creative non-fiction, is founder of Left Coast Writers. She will lead a workshop during Words & Music, 2010.
Rob Magnuson Smith won the Society’s Gold Medal for Novel in the 2004 competition for his debut novel The Gravedigger. The novel will be published by the University of New Orleans Press in September. Rob was raised in England and Oregon. His short fiction appears or is forthcoming in Fiction International, Inkwell Magazine, The Greensboro Review, Notes from the Underground, and The Reader (UK). He currently divides his time between San Francisco and Norwich, England, where he is the 2009 – 10 David Higham Scholar at the University of East Anglia. Rob will be a member of the 2010 faculty for Words & Music.
Stewart O’Nan
Stewart O’Nan, whose debut novel Snow Angels won the Society first Gold Medal for Novel and who has since had 16 books of fiction published, including Names of the Dead and Prayers for the Living, says of Rob’s book:
The Gravedigger is a wry, soulful glimpse of how one good but lonely man’s quiet existence is turned upside down by a late and unexpected love. Rob Magnuson Smith paints a funny, sad, gentle yet ferocious portrait of village life.
Susan Schoenberger, who won the gold medal for best novel in 2006 for her manuscript, Intercession, has sold her novel to Guidepost Books and is working on preparing the manuscript with her editor at the publishing house, Linda Guzzardi. The book is scheduled for publication in the Spring of 2011 under a new title: A Watershed Year. Susan has been a journalist since 1984 at various newspapers, including The Baltimore Sun and The Hartford Courant, where she now works as a part-time copy editor. Her articles and essays have appeared in many publications, most including in the Courant’s Sunday magazine. Her short stories have appeared in Inkwell and the Village Rambler. This is her first novel. Susan lives in West Hartford with her husband and three children.
Kellam signs contract!
Caroline Kellems, who runs a large coffee plantation and coffee export operation in Guatemala, has placed in the competition. In 2008, at Words & Music, a Literary Feast in New Orleans, Caroline was signed by literary agent Deborah Grosvenor, who has been a member of the Words & Music faculty since 1997, when the Society created the festival, and literary editor Pat Walsh of Macadam Cage expressed strong interest in purchasing her novel, The Coffee Diary. At Words & Music, 2009, the deal was concluded. Caroline is shown with Pat and Deborah signing the contract. The novel is expected to be published next year.
Kathleen George
Kathleen George, whose latest mystery novel is Odds, has been nominated for an Edgar Allen Poe Award, among the most prestigious of all writing prizes and the most prestigious prize for novels of mystery. Kathy was first runner-up for the Faulkner Society’s gold medal for novel the first year we awarded a novel prize. Stewart O’Nan won the prize that year. Both of their careers have taken off since then. Ironically, they were
colleagues. Both were teaching at the University of Pittsburg at the time. Kathy still lives and teaches in Pittsburg and she has just learned that she will be editing the new anthology, Pittsburg Noir. Kathy was a member of the 2009 faculty for Words & Music, participating in two round table discussions, “How to write a compelling mystery” and “Tough times inspire tough literature.” Entertainment Weekly said in its review of Odds: “If anyone’s writing better police thrillers than George, I don’t know who it is.” Characters in the book include a pair of memorably determined children.
Randy Susan Meyers
Another Faulkner – Wisdom competition finalist, who also has a book focusing on two unforgettable children, Randy Susan Meyers has just published her novel, The Murderer’s Daughters, which is now available in bookstores and being favorably reviewed.
Joan Frank
Joan Frank, who has placed in the Society’s competition, has just published a new story collection, In Envy Country, which has won the 2010 Richard Sullivan Prize in Short Fiction. The book was released this month by the University of Notre Dame Press. Joan is the author of the novels Miss Kansas City, winner of the Michigan Literary Fiction Award, and The Great Far Away, finalist for a Northern California Book Award in Fiction. Her first story collection, Boys Keep Being Born, was a finalist for both the Bay Area Book Reviewers’ Fiction Award and the Paterson Fiction Award. Her Authors’ Guild website, www.joanfrank.org, offers more information.
Ellis Anderson
Ellis Anderson, who was first runner-up in the Society’s 2006 essay competition, expanded her essay to book length and it will be published in August by the University Press of Mississippi as Under Surge, Under Siege: The Odyssey of Bay St. Louis and Katrina. The book details her eye-witness account of Katrina’s fury and three years of the storm’s aftermath in her close-knit community. Ellis will read and sign at our Katrina remembrance, Sunday, August 29. Ellis, a designer, musician, and civic activist, grew up in Charlotte, NC, then migrated to New Orleans in pursuit of her artistic muse, including the creation of original jewelry, which she sold in a Royal Street boutique. She resided in the French Quarter for two decades before moving full time to the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 1996. Writing has remained her primary passion and Anderson’s work has been published in various regional venues, including Southern Cultures. Her essays have garnered several awards in addition to first place runner-up in the 2006 Faulkner-Wisdom Competition. She was also the recipient of a Mississippi Arts Commission Fellowship for Literary Excellence (2007).
SUCCESS STORY BOOKS :
To order the books of Barb Johnson, Robin Black, C. Robert Holloway, Randy, Susan Meyers, Kathy George, Joan Frank, Rachel Stolzman, and Jane Satterfield, call Faulkner House Books at (504) 524-2940 or e-mail your order to faulkhouse@aol.com. Current paid Society members can purchase their books at a 10 per cent discount. Please mention that you have taken a new or renewed an existing membership since September 25, 2009, the beginning of our Faulkner Society calendar of events. You may pre-order the books of Linda, Rob, and Ellis in August.
Learn how to enter this year’s competion – CLICK HERE!
published in Hebrew translation by Matar Publishing Company in Tel Aviv, in French translation by Éditions Albin Michel in Paris, and in Dutch translation by Uitgeverij Ailantus in Amsterdam. Among his other books are Foreign Fictions (Random House), two volumes on literary translation (The University of Chicago Press), and Strange Harbors, an anthology of international literature in translation (Center for the Art of Translation). Biguenet’s radio play Wundmale, which premiered on Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Germany’s largest radio network, was rebroadcast by Österreichischer Rundfunk, the Austrian national radio and television network. Two of his stories have been featured in Selected Shorts at Symphony Space on Broadway.
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