Middlebury College Bread Loaf Writers' Conference awards 2008 Bakeless Prizes in poetry, fiction and nonfiction

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. - The Middlebury College Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference announced the winners of the 13th annual Katharine Bakeless Nason Literary Publication Prizes. The prizes are awarded each year to aid and encourage writers seeking publication of their first books in a particular genre.

The judge for the poetry category was Eavan Boland, author of “Domestic Violence” (2007) and “After Every War: Twentieth-Century Women Poets” (2004). She selected Leslie Harrison’s “Displacement” for the 2008 Bakeless poetry prize.

Harrison holds graduate degrees from the Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Irvine. Born in Germany, she has lived in three countries and seven states. Her poems and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, POOL, Southwest Review, Burnside Review, Ninth Letter, Sewanee Theological Review and elsewhere. Formerly a photojournalist, Harrison currently works as a graphic designer and newspaper production manager in Massachusetts.

Antonya Nelson, author of five short story collections, including “Some Fun” (2006) and “In The Land of Men” (1992) served as the judge for the fiction category. She selected Skip Horack’s “The Southern Cross” for the 2008 Bakeless fiction prize.

Horack was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in the Stanford University Creative Writing Program from 2006 to 2008. A native of Louisiana, his fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Southeast Review, New Delta Review, Louisiana Literature, The Southern Review, StoryQuarterly, Epoch, and elsewhere. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Florida State University in English and creative writing. Prior to accepting the Stegner Fellowship, he practiced law for five years in Baton Rouge. Horack is currently a lecturer at Stanford University.
Tom Bissell, author of “The Father of All Things” (2007), “God Lives in St. Petersburg and Other Stories” (2005) and “Chasing the Sea” (2003), judged the nonfiction category. He selected Vicki Forman’s “This Lovely Life” for the 2008 Bakeless creative nonfiction prize.

Forman’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart prize and has appeared in the Seneca Review and the Santa Monica Review as well as the anthologies, “Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child With Special Needs;” “This Day: Diaries From American Women;” and “Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined.” She teaches creative writing at the University of Southern California and lives outside Los Angeles.

The three winning authors will have their manuscripts published by Houghton Mifflin-Harcourt. In addition, they will receive fellowships to attend the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in August 2009. Complete guidelines for the Bakeless Literary Publication Prizes are available online at http://www.bakelessprize.org.

Judges for the 2009 prizes will be Linda Gregerson for poetry, Percival Everett for fiction and Sue Halpern for creative nonfiction. New submissions will be accepted from Sept. 15 through Nov. 1, 2008.

For more information contact Jennifer Bates, the Bakeless Prize coordinator for the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, at (802) 443-2018 or bakelessprize@middlebury.edu.