With the gift of $50,000 for winning the 2017 St. Francis College Literary Prize, Dana Spiotta now has one of the most important gifts of all, the gift to spend more time working on new projects. That encouragement and freedom to write is precisely why St. Francis College creates the Literary Prize, which is awarded every two years to a mid-career author. The college wants to focus attention on writers as they continue to find their voice, while supporting them in working on their next great work.
Following up on the award Spiotta attended a panel Sunday at the Book Festival with Adam Haslett, Deb Olin Unferth, as well as the three jury prize members. Dana Spiotta is the author of Innocents and Others; Stone Arabia, A National Books Critics Circle Award finalist; and Eat the Document, a finalist for the National Book Award and a recipient of the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; and Lightning Field (2001).
The $50,000 Literary Prize compliments the programming at St. Francis College which brings a number of high-profile and rising star authors to campus every year through the Walt Whitman Writers Series. The next scheduled author is Ron Currie, who will be at St. Francis on October 25 at 5:00pm. The College is also proud to host a new Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing featuring mentors, Marlon James (A Brief History of Seven Killings) and Annie Finch (Spells: New and Selected Poems). http://www.sfc.edu/news/sfcliteraryprize
Congratulations, Dana. I was actually looking for the 2018 St. Francis College Literary Prize but I cannot find any information yet.