The AWP Award Series in Creative Nonfiction

Winner: Mort Zachter
Dough: A Memoir, University of Georgia Press

Kyoko Mori, Judge

Mort Zachter grew up believing his Lower East Side baker family was poor. At thirty-six, he discovered the family secret: he is a second generation, perhaps even third-generation, millionaire. Dough is his story. His essays have appeared, or are pending, in Fourth Genre, Moment, Weatherwise, and the Kelsey Literary Review. In the spring of 2006, he gave a public reading of his work at the 92nd Street Y in NYC. In a prior life, he was an attorney/CPA and adjunct tax professor at NYU. He lives in Princeton, N.J. with his wife and children.

The AWP Award Series in the Novel

Winner: Geoff Rips
The Truth, New Issues Press

Nicholas Delbanco, Judge

Geoff Rips was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. He received his BA from Wesleyan University and an MA in English/Creative Writing from Indiana University. Rips has been the editor of the Texas Observer, worked with colonias on the Texas/Mexico Border to secure water and wastewater services, and, as a Soros Foundation Fellow, wrote about the function of public schools on the Border as a point of entry into US society. Rips has taught night school at San Antonio Community College, served as policy director for Jim Hightower's Texas Department of Agriculture, worked as speechwriter for a handful of decent politicians, and currently serves as director of special projects for Austin, Texas, public schools. Through it all, he has spent many late nights writing fiction and poetry in a room attached to his garage, and has published short stories, poetry, and criticism in small magazines, journals, and newspapers. He lives in Austin with his elementary school principal wife and two mostly grown, nearly perfect daughters.

Donald Hall Prize for Poetry

Winner: Angela Ball
Night Clerk at the Hotel of Both Worlds, University of Pittsburgh Press

Terrance Hayes, Judge

Angela Ball grew up in Athens, Ohio. She got her bachelor’s degree at Ohio University, studying with Stanley Plumly, and earned an MFA from the University of Iowa and a PhD from the University of Denver before joining the faculty of the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. Honors for Ball’s work have included an Individual Writer’s Grant from the NEA, an Arthur J. Schiable Award from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, a teaching residence at the University of Richmond, and invitations to represent the US at festivals in Rotterdam and Bogata. She is poetry editor of Mississippi Review, and has edited a special International Poetry issue and an issue on Poets of the New York School, among others. Ball’s poems and translations have appeared widely in many well-known journals.  Her previous books of poetry include Kneeling Between Parked Cars (Owl Creek Press, 1990), Possession (Red Hen, 1995), Quartet (Carnegie Mellon, 1995), and The Museum of the Revolution (Carnegie Mellon, 1999). She lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, with her two dogs, Maggie and Scarlet.
Photo Credit: Pier Rodelon

The Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction

Winner: Karen Brown
Pins and Needles, University of Massachusetts Press

Nancy Reisman, Judge

Karen Brown was born in Connecticut, and attended Cornell University and the University of South Florida in Tampa, where she received an MA in Creative Writing, and is currently pursuing a PhD. Her stories have appeared in or are forthcoming from Epoch, the Georgia Review, StoryQuarterly, Ascent, the Tampa Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and The O. Henry Prize Stories, 2006.