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Jefferson Press Prize for Best New Voice in Fiction |
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Winners of the 2008 Jefferson Press Prize have been selected and are being contacted. The winner's book will be published in 2009. A list of winners will be posted here soon. Entries are now being accepted for the 2009 prize. Congratulations to 2007 winner James Nolan. His new release from Jefferson Press Perpetual Care and Other Stories has been named a July Notable book by the Independent Booksellers. Entries are steadily coming in to meet the December 31 postmarked deadline for the 2008 Jefferson Press Prize. Aspiring authors are inspired by the success of 2007 finalists, including winner James Nolan. His book will be published by Jefferson Press in May 2008 and already he has fielded movie rights requests and interest in German translation. Another finalist recently won a major literary award while yet another of this year’s finalists has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Judges for the 2008 prize have not yet been selected, but the promise to be of the same quality as Tom Franklin, William Gay and Wyatt Prunty who chose the 2007 winner. Anyone interested in submitting for the second annual Jefferson Press Prize, obtaining the cash-award and publishing contract, should read the rules below and submit by the end of the day December 31 for the postmark and let the judges take it from there! Any questions may be emailed to Jefferson Press President David Magee at dmagee@jeffersonpress.com.
In our effort to find and publish the best new voices in fiction, Jefferson Press is pleased to announce for the second year, The Jefferson Press Prize, recognizing a novel or collection of short stories of outstanding merit. Please note our new rules pertaining to submission: the contest is open to any work of book-length fiction, by any writer who has never published a book before and who has not signed a contract to do so, with the exceptions of poetry, translation, literary criticism, children's books, and self-published books. All writers entering the contest must be citizens of the United States. The winning writer will be chosen from five finalists and will be awarded a $5,000 prize and a contract from Jefferson Press to publish the winning manuscript. The four other finalists will each receive $500 prizes. Collection of submissions will begin July 1, 2007, and entries must be postmarked by December 31, 2007. An entry fee of $35 must be included with the manuscript. Email inquires should be directed to prize@jeffersonpress.com
We are pleased to announce that the winner of the first annual Jefferson Press Prize for Best New Voice in Fiction is James Nolan, for his story collection, Perpetual Care and Other Stories. After careful deliberation, the judges concluded that Perpetual Care distinguished itself because of the author's willingness to take risks – "not afraid to venture into ruined cities and ruined hearts" – and for the work's apt, disturbing and funny tales, united by an overwhelming sense of place and its defining people. That pervasive setting, which largely impressed the judges, is New Orleans, Louisiana, and it is the eccentric, unmatched spirit of this city that is reflected in the stubborn, shattered, comic, solitary souls who drive each of these stories. Congratulations to Mr. Nolan! He will be receiving a $5,000 award, and his collection will be published by Jefferson Press in Spring 2008.
Congratulations to all our finalists and of course our Winner!
Tom Franklin has published a collection of stories, Poachers, whose title novella won the Edgar Allan Poe Award. His novel, Hell at the Breech won the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters prize and the Alabama Library Award for Adult Fiction. His most recent novel is Smonk, a finalist for the Southern Independent Booksellers award. Winner of a 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship, he is a writer-in-residence at Ole Miss and lives in Oxford with his wife, poet Beth Ann Fennelly, and their two children. William Gay lives in Hohenwald, Tennessee, and is the author of three novels and one story collection, including his most recent release, Twilight. His fiction and essays have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, The Oxford American, and Paste magazine. His work has recently been selected by Stephen King for inclusion in Best American Short Stories 2007, and by Carl Haaisen for Best American Mystery Stories 2007. Wyatt Prunty lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, and directs the Sewanee Writers' Conference at the University of the South. He is the author of seven collections of poetry, including Unarmed and Dangerous. His honors include Guggenheim and Brown Foundation fellowships. He is the general editor of the Sewanee Writers' Series and directs the Tennessee Williams Fellowship program.
Jefferson Press was founded in 2002 in Oxford, Mississippi, by author and publisher David Magee. Though we have since relocated our offices to Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, our dedication to finding new and talented voices in letters still reflects the literary spirit of William Faulkner's home town and the launching pad of many other outstanding writers. A relatively young and small independent house, we are committed to publishing works of creative non-fiction and works of non-fiction that support the study and enjoyment of literature and writing. In addition to this list of titles, the Jefferson Press Prize will also determine the one book of fiction we publish each year, in hope of giving rise to strong, new voices and lasting literary careers....
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