Fayetteville resident Carolyn Guinzio is this year’s recipient of Arkansas’s most lucrative and prestigious literary award, The Porter Prize, accompanied by $5,000.
Guinzio is author of eight poetry collections (including, most recently, Cameo Blue), and her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Nation. Guinzio was nominated by 2003 Porter Fund Literary Prize recipient and Little Rock resident Kevin Brockmeier.
The Porter Fund Literary Prize is presented annually to an Arkansas writer who has accomplished a substantial and impressive body of work that merits enhanced recognition. Eligibility requires an Arkansas connection. Honorees tend to be writers without high-profile national reputations, but who have produced significant amounts of quality material. The Porter Prize also offers a Lifetime Achievement Award every 5 years, with an award of $5,000. Past winners include Jo McDougall, Charles Portis, Miller Williams, and Donald Harington.
These additional awards are available for Arkansas books:
The Booker Worthen Literary Prize is awarded each year to the best work, fiction or non-fiction, by an author living in Arkansas. With a stipend of $2,000 There is a three-year period of eligibility based on a book’s copyright year. Five authors—Mara Leveritt, Kevin Brockmeier, Grif Stockley, S. Charles Bolton, and Kenneth C. Barnes—have won the award twice.
Phillip H. McMath Post Publication Book Award is granted to a book in any genre published in the previous year. In addition to the $500 award, winners are invited to the UCA Arkatext Literary Festival and will receive an additional $1,000 to cover their travel costs.
The Arkansiana Award from the Arkansas Library Association is given biennially to the author(s) of a book or other work that represents a significant contribution to Arkansas heritage and culture in three categories: adult nonfiction ($300), adult fiction ($300), and juvenile books ($300).
Hot Springs native Erin Wood is a writer, editor, and publisher in Little Rock. She owns and runs etaliapress.com. Wood is the author of “Women Make Arkansas: Conversations With 50 Creatives” (2019) and editor of and a contributor to “Scars: An Anthology” (2015).
{Additional book reviews by Erin Wood can be found on our website at TheSpringsMagazine.com/AR Books.}
