Topeka, Kan. – Kansas writers of literary nonfiction, with book-length memoirs, essays, or journalistic writing published in the past three years (2018/2019/2020) are eligible to win the $1,000 2021 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Literary Nonfiction. The annual award, rotating between poetry, fiction, and literary nonfiction is sponsored by the Thomas Fox Averill Kansas Studies Collection at Washburn University in Topeka. There is no fee to enter.
This year's judge will be 2018 Literary Nonfiction winner Louise Krug, who is assistant professor of English at Washburn University and a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts and Doctoral programs at the University of Kansas. Her prize-winning book was Tilted: The Post Brain-Surgery Journals.
Deadline for submission is December 15, 2020. For complete guidelines, please visit: http://www.washburn.edu/mabee/ksbookaward
The 2020 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Fiction went to Ben Lerner for his The Topeka School, from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
The Thomas Fox Averill Kansas Studies Collection—sponsor of the competition—is an eclectic, inclusive set of materials dedicated to the study of Kansas literature through the state’s folklore, history, geography, flora, fauna, social fabric and culture. The holdings include novels, plays, collections of poetry and fiction, histories, biographies, memoirs, letters, scholarly articles, collected folklore, manuscripts and ephemera gathered over more than forty years.
For further information, contact:
Patrick Early
Director of Public Relations
Telephone: 785-670-1711
Cell: 717-385-1119
Email: patrick.early@washburn.edu
