Emrys is pleased to share member news of publications, exhibits, performances and other work on our website. If you have something you'd like to share with other Emrys members, please forward to Jennifer Englert-Copeland.
AWARDS
Ron Rash, the John and Dorothy Parris Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University, is the recipient of an O. Henry Prize for 2010.Rash received the award, his second O. Henry Prize, for his short story “Into the Gorge,” published in the fall 2008 edition of The Southern Review. His is one of 20 stories selected from across the nation for the 2010 prize.The Atlantic Monthly says that O. Henry Prizes are “widely regarded as the nation’s most prestigious awards for short fiction.”Among past winners of the O. Henry Prize are such influential writers as Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Thurber, James Baldwin, Woody Allen, Mary McCarthy, Alice Walker, Chaim Potok, J.D. Salinger, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, E.L. Doctorow, Andrea Barrett, John Irving and Stephen King.The O. Henry Prize is the latest in a series of awards received by Rash. He is recipient of the 2009 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction for his fourth novel, “Serena.” The award is presented annually by the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association in recognition of works of fiction that exhibit “creative and imaginative quality, excellence of style, universality of appeal, and relevance to North Carolina and her people.” He also won the Sir Walter Raleigh Award in 2006 – that one for his third novel, “The World Made Straight.”
PUBLICATIONS
Sheri S. Levy’s first magazine article was published in the July issue of Clubhouse Magazine. The article, entitled, Scent with Love, chronicles the experience of a boy who receives a diabetic alert dog and how it changed his life, in fact, saved his life many times.
Peek inside Nan Lundeen’s new book of poems, The Pantyhose Declarations, at Amazon.com. Enjoy her video poem, “Do I have to Wear Pantyhose?” at NanLundeen.com. The Pantyhose Declarations celebrates women who defy convention, who rebuff the duty train, and who discover the magic of a redemptive red bra. Nan’s poetry celebrates the goddess in us all.
EXHIBITS
Polly Gaillard is featured in "Beyond the Lens," a photography exhibit at Village Studios and Gallery, 1278 Pendleton Street. The exhibit runs through June 26th. For more information, please visit http://www.villagestudioandgallery.com.
PERFORMANCES
Driving Miss Daisy, starring long-time Emrys friend and supporter Shirley Sarlin, opens June 10th at Centre Stage and runs Thursday-Sunday through June 26th. Tickets are available through the Centre Stage box office or by visiting www.centrestage.org.
ARCHIVES
Mindy Friddle, Director of the Writing Room, named 2008-2009 Prose Fellow by South Carolina Arts Commission
Mindy Friddle was recently named a 2008-2009 Prose Fellow of the South Carolina Arts Commission. Fellowships recognize and reward the artistic achievements of South Carolina's exceptional individual artists and are awarded through a highly competitive, anonymous process based on artistic excellence only. The fellowship awards bring recognition that may open doors to other resources and employment opportunities.
Friddle directs the Writing Room, a nonprofit program for writers. A book reviewer and columnist, she holds a master's degree in fine arts from Warren Wilson College in Ashville, N.C. She recently completed her second novel, Secret Keepers, which will be published next summer by St. Martin's Press. Her first novel, The Garden Angel was selected for Barnes and Noble's Discover Great New Writers program in 2004. She has received a fellowship in fiction from the South Carolina Academy of Authors, has twice won the South Carolina Fiction Prize and earned the Walter E. Dakin Fellowship in Fiction at the 2005 Sewanee Writers' Conference in Sewanee, Tenn.
Work developed during Writing Room selected for South Carolina Fiction Project
Jean Robbins, Greenville writer and Writing Room student, was recently named a winner of the South Carolina Fiction Project. The Project is a contest of previously unpublished short stories sponsored in partnership with The Post and Courier.
Robbins was the only girl between two brothers and they liked it best when she didn’t talk. Unable to shut up, she wrote, filling diaries and notebooks with what she saw, heard, felt and thought. In college she majored in English and read a lot. She finished college with a high school teaching certificate, taught middle school English, Montessori preschool, adult parenting classes (needed an MA in psychology), and high school special needs students (completed an MA in Learning Disabilities for that). Meanwhile, she and her husband live in Seneca and have reared his and her six children. Two years ago, “Heavy Machinery” developed from an assignment during a Writing Room workshop with Scott Gould, and has been a work in progress since then. Now that it’s been chosen for the South Carolina Fiction Project, she can stop rewriting it.