The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference of Middlebury College is pleased to announce the winners of the 2004 ninth annual Bakeless Literary Publication Prizes. Ron Slate's The Incentive of the Maggot was chosen by Robert Pinsky for the Poetry prize. Michael Guista's Brain Work was chosen by Charles Baxter for the Fiction prize. There was no winner in the Creative Nonfiction prize category. The two winning authors will have their book length manuscripts published by Houghton Mifflin, in its distinguished Mariner Original Paperback line. In addition, they will receive fellowships to attend the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in August, 2005.
2004 Bakeless Poetry Prize
Ron Slate was born in Quincy, Massachusetts. He graduated from the Stanford Writing Program in 1973 with and A.M. in Creative Writing. He completed coursework in American Literature for Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, but did not write dissertation. Early on he published poetry in Antaeus, The Georgia Review. Poetry Northwest, and Virginia Quarterly Review. He stopped writing poetry from 1985-2000. In those years he worked in corporate communications, starting as a speechwriter. He was Vice President for Global Communications for EMC Corp, a Fortune 500 size company. He resumed writing in 2001 while sitting in his corporate office, and decided to quit his job. The poems of his award winning manuscript sprung from the ensuing 18-month flurry of writing. He is married and has three daughters.
2004 Bakeless Fiction Prize
Michael Guista grew up in the San Joaquin Valley of California. He received a Masters degree in psychology but did not take to the field. He went on to earn a MFA in Creative Writing from UC Irvine, 1984. His focus had been poetry, but he soon turned to fiction, publishing in journals such as American Short Fiction, Quarterly West, and North American Review. In 1996 he received a fiction fellowship from the California Arts Council. He is currently re-working a collection of essays about obsessive-compulsive disorders. He gave up tenure at Orange Coast College in California to take a new tenure-track position at Allan Hancock College, also in California, where his wife teaches.