11 May 2023 Porter Fleming Literary Competition Award Winners Announced!
The 2023 Porter Fleming Literary Competition Award Winners
The winners of the 2023 Porter Fleming Literary Competition have been announced by the Morris Museum of Art. They are:
Fiction
1st Place: Karen Weigman, Atlanta, Georgia; The Gold Lamé of Billy Day
2nd Place: Ashley Beresch, Eatonton, Georgia; Roadkill
3rd Place: Kyra Lesseberg, Appling, Georgia; A Southern Lady’s Recipe for Good Manners
Judge: Matthew Null, is a novelist (Honey from the Lion) and short story writer. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he is a winner of the O. Henry Award, the Mary McCarthy Prize, and the Joseph Brodksy Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. After a two-year residency at the American Academy in Rome, he is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.
Non-Fiction
1st Place: Karen Lauritzen, Clayton, North Carolina; Making My Way Home
2nd Place: Sea Stachura, Augusta, Georgia; Family Day at the Prison
3rd Place: Kerri Devine, Sullivans Island, South Carolina; Back Seat Driver
Judge: Barry Yeoman is an award-winning journalist who also teaches at both Duke University and Wake Forest University. His most recent work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Baffler, Audubon Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, National Wildlife, and The Assembly.
Plays
1st Place: Jonathan Cook, North Augusta, South Carolina; Leonora
2nd Place: Christobal Garcia, Martinez, Georgia; The Tiger and the Brahman
3rd Place: Walter Evans, Augusta, Georgia; Another Man’s Lyric
Judge: Ellen Hemphill, is a playwright, screenwriter, actor, and the director of the award-winning Archipelago Theatre/Ciné in Chapel Hill, NC. She is also a Professor in the Duke University Theater Studies Department.
Poetry
1st Place: Beth Ann Fennelly, Oxford, Mississippi; “Epistle to my Lord”
2nd Place: Beth Ann Fennelly, Oxford, Mississippi; “The Last Hummingbird of Summer”
3rd Place: Anna Lena Bell, Castle Hayne, North Carolina; “Wish for Continuance”
Honorable Mentions:
Tony Morris, Richmond Hill, Georgia; “After Taps in Appalachia”
Tony Morris, Richmond Hill, Georgia; “Lean”
Teri McCord, Greenville, South Carolina; “On View in Room 14 Ocean Side”
Eric Nelson, Asheville, North Carolina; “His Art”
Laurel Blossom, Edgefield, South Carolina and /Los Angeles, California; “Second Story Window”
Laurel Blossom, Edgefield, South Carolina and Los Angeles, California; “Candy Stripes”
Laurel Blossom, Edgefield, South Carolina and Los Angeles, California; “How We Sold the House”
Grace Przywara, Aiken, South Carolina; “Traffic Court in a Small Southern Town”
Sylvia Freeman, Durham, North Carolina; “Given”
Laurel Blossom, Edgefield, South Carolina and Los Angeles, California; “Baboon Bites Toddler at Fair”
Judge: Alan Shapiro, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a renowned American poet. He is the author of thirteen collections of poetry, including Tantalus in Love, Song and Dance, Dead Alive and Busy, as well as two memoirs, Vigil and The Last Happy Occasion.
The Porter Fleming Literary Competition, recognizing talented writers who reside in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, was established in 1993 by Shirley Fleming to honor her late father, noted author and artist Berry Fleming. Funded by the Porter Fleming Foundation, which is administered by the Trustees of the Academy of Richmond County, the competition is organized and administered by the Morris Museum of Art. The Porter Fleming Foundation was established by Berry Fleming in 1963 as a memorial to his father, Porter Fleming, a prominent Augustan and one of the city’s leading philanthropists.
For more information visit: 2020 Winners – Morris Museum of Art (themorris.org)