Fiction writer Jen Fawkes has been named the recipient of the 2021 Porter Fund Literary Prize, the annual award given to an Arkansas writer "who has accomplished a substantial and impressive body of work that merits enhanced recognition."
The annual prize of $2,000 has been given to 37 other Arkansas poets, novelists, nonfiction writers and playwrights since 1985.
Additionally, lifetime achievement awards given every five years since 2004 have been given to four writers: novelist Donald Harington, poet Miller Williams, novelist Charles Portis and poet Jo McDougall.
Writers Jack Butler and Phillip H. McMath, the latter of whom is also an attorney, founded the prize in 1984 in memory of Ben Kimpel, their former teacher and chairman of the English department at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. At Kimpel's request, the prize was named in memory of his mother, Gladys Crane Kimpel Porter.
"As a lapsed Arkansan who returned to the state after two decades 'off' to find that this wild, wooly place is the only place I want to live, I was thrilled to learn that I won the 2021 Porter Prize," Fawkes said in a statement. "And when I discovered that Dr. Ben Kimpel, for whom the Prize is named, wrote his doctoral dissertation on Herman Melville -- one of my most cherished literary forebears -- I was positively ecstatic. What an honor to be recognized by my home state, and to join this roster of Arkansas authors whose work I so admire."
Her debut book, the short story collection "Mannequin and Wife," won two 2020 Foreword INDIE Awards and became a finalist for a 2020 Shirley Jackson Award. Her second book, "Tales the Devil Told Me," won the 2020 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction and is forthcoming in October.
Fawkes, who didn't start writing earnestly until she was 30, was born in Chicago and grew up in Little Rock after her parents' split up (her mother is from St. Charles in Arkansas County), according to a profile published in 2020 in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. She graduated from Little Rock Central High School.
She has a Ph.D in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Cincinnati, a master of fine arts degree in Creative Writing from Hollins University in Roanoke, Va., and a bachelor of science degree in anthropology from Columbia University in New York City. She lives in Little Rock.
Fawkes, 46, will be honored at a ceremony at the Central Arkansas Library System Main Library Darragh Center in downtown Little Rock on Oct. 7. Admission is free, and the event is open to the public. The time of the event has not yet been set.
Here is a list of previous winners:
2020: Geffrey Davis, poetry
2019: Qui Nguyen, playwriting
2018: Tyrone Jaeger, fiction
2017: Padma Viswanathan, fiction
2016: Sandy Longhorn, poetry
2015: Davis McCombs, poetry
2014: Mara Leveritt, nonfiction
2013: Pat Carr, fiction
2012: Margaret Jones Bolsterli, nonfiction
2011: Bill Harrison, fiction
2010: Bob Ford, playwriting
2009: Roy Reed, nonfiction
2008: Trenton Lee Stewart, fiction
2007: Greg Brownderville, poetry
2006: Donald "Skip" Hays, fiction
2005: Shirley Abbott, nonfiction
2005: Constance Merritt, poetry
2004: Michael Burns, poetry
2003: Kevin Brockmeier, fiction
2002: Ralph Burns, poetry
2001: Morris Arnold, nonfiction
2001: Fleda Brown, poetry
2000: Jo McDougall, poetry
1999: Grif Stockley, fiction
1998: Michael Heffernan, poetry
1997: Dennis Vannatta, fiction
1996: David Jauss, fiction
1995: Norman Lavers, fiction
1994: Werner Trieschmann, playwriting
1993: No prize was awarded
1992: Andrea Hollander, poetry
1991: Crescent Dragonwagon, fiction
1990: James Twiggs, fiction
1989: Hope Norman Coulter, fiction
1988: Paul Lake, poetry
1987: Donald Harington, fiction
1986: Buddy Nordan, fiction
1985: Leon Stokesbury, poetry