MORGANTOWN — Shepherd University’s Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities announced the winners of the West Virginia Fiction Competition.
The statewide event is funded by the West Virginia Center for the Book and is supported by the Shepherd University Foundation and the West Virginia Humanities Council.
Writers from across the state submitted stories for the $500 first prize and $100 second place, and third place and Judges’ Choice prizes, the latter specifically for public school writers. Winners were selected by the 2020 West Virginia Common Read Author and Shepherd University Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence Dorothy Allison, author of “Bastard Out of Carolina” and “State Common Read Selection Cavedweller.”
The competition’s first-place prize went to “June Drop” by Morgantown writer Jordan Carter, who also placed among the winners in the 2019 competition.
Scott Depot’s Cat Pleska won second place for “A Killing Time,” while Shepherdstown writer Pat Donohoe won third place for “Closet Wars.”
Allison wrote story reviews for each of the three winners, while editors of the Anthology of Appalachian Writers Dave Hoffman, Aneyla Dozier, and Sylvia Shurbutt wrote story reviews for the finalists: DC Gallant from Harpers Ferry, Lynne Squires from Scott Depot, Suzanne Heagy from Fairmont, and Amber Ray Garcia from Morgantown.
Fiction writer Natalie Sypolt wrote the story review for Caroline Higginbottom, seventh grade student of Sarah Ochap at Linsly School in Wheeling.
All stories are submitted to the Anthology of Appalachian Writers Dorothy Allison Volume, scheduled for publication in April 2021.
For information about the Dorothy Allison Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence, see https://www.shepherd.edu/ahwirweb/ allison/.
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