Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel

Kelly Cherry, Judge for the 2007 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel Final judge for the 2007 Peter Taylor Prize will be acclaimed short story writer, novelist and poet Kelly Cherry, author of more than 20 books and recipient of numerous literary honors, including an O. Henry Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the James G. Hanes Prize from the Fellowship of Southern Authors. Cherry is featured frequently at universities and writers' workshops across the country, including Duke University, Bennington Writers' Workshops, and the Mount Holyoke Writers Conference. Cherry's work has been included in more than one hundred anthologies, and she is a contributor to publications such as Atlantic Monthly, Commentary, Esquire, Fiction, Georgia Review, Los Angeles Times Book Review, Ms., Mademoiselle, New York Times Book Review, Southern Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review, among many others. Cherry is Eudora Welty Professor Emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her latest novel is We Can Still Be Friends, published by Soho Press.

Jon Manchip White, Judge for the 2006 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel Knoxville author Jon Manchip White has been selected to judge the 2006 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel. White was founder of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Tennessee and is the author of over thirty-five books of fiction, history, travel, and biography. In 2005, the Knoxville Writers Guild named Manchip White to receive its 2005 Career Achievement Award. Born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1924, Manchip White studied at Cambridge University and served in the Royal Navy, the Welsh Guards and the British Foreign Service. He then moved to America where he spent ten years as a professor at the University of Texas before becoming the holder of the Lindsay Young Chair of English at the University of Tennessee. He has lived in Knoxville for more than a quarter-century. His acclaimed books include The Journeying Boy, an account of his journey back to his Welsh homeland; Cortes, a bibliography of the conqueror of the Aztecs; and Echoes and Shadows, a book of stories with a supernatural aspect. Over the years he also has written for TV, radio and film.

Jill McCorkle judged the 2005 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel. Jill McCorkle is the author of eight works of fiction, including the critically-acclaimed novels Carolina Moon, Ferris Beach, Tending to Virginia, July 7th, and The Cheer Leader, along with the story collections Creatures of Habit, Final Vinyl Days, and Crash Diet. Four of her books have been included in the "Notable Books of the Year" listings compiled by The New York Times Book Review. In 1993 McCorkle received the New England Booksellers' Association Award for an outstanding body of work, and in 2003 she was inducted into the Fellowship of Southern Authors. A native of Lumberton, North Carolina, McCorkle holds an MFA from Hollins College and is on the faculty of the Bennington College MFA in Writing Program.

Barry Hannah judged the 2004 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel . One of the most original and important writers to emerge from the South since World War II, Barry Hannah is the author of fifteen works of fiction, including Geronimo Rex, Airships, Ray, The Tennis Handsome, Captain Maximus, Boomerang, Bats Out of Hell and most recently, Yonder Stands Your Orphan. Recipient of the Faulkner Foundation Award, the Award for Literature from the American Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Robert Penn Warren Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, Hannah is Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi.

John Casey judged the 2003 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel . An acclaimed writer and educator, Mr. Casey is the author of five works of fiction, including An American Romance, Testimony and Demeanor, South Country, Spartina and, most recently, The Half-Life of Happiness . He is a contributor to a number of magazines, including The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Harpers, Esquire, Ploughshares , and Shenandoah.

A recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Mr. Casey was awarded a Friends of American Letters award for his 1980 story collection, Testimony and Demeanor. He received the 1989 National Book Award for his third novel, Spartina, a work described by the New York Times Book Review as splendidly conceived, flawlessly rendered and totally absorbing. In 1990 Casey became a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. He won the Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1992.

A graduate of Harvard College (B.A., 1962), Harvard Law School (LL.B., 1965) and the University of Iowa Creative Writing program (M.F.A., 1968), Mr. Casey is Professor of English Literature at the University of Virginia and a regular instructor of fiction writing at the Sewanee Writers Conference at the University of the South. Mr. Casey is a former student of Peter Taylor and was a close friend to Mr. Taylor throughout his life. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. More about his works....

A lan Cheuse judged the 2002 contest. He is a novelist, story writer, journalist, and author, among other books, of The Grandmothers Club and The Light Possessed and Lost and Old Rivers, and the memoir Fall Out of Heaven. He serves as book commentator for NPRs evening news-magazine All Things Considered and his work appears regularly in a number of national publications. His recent essay collection, Listening to the Page, Adventures in Reading and Writing, was published by Columbia University Press.

Doris Betts - Judge for 2001 Contest D oris Betts judged the contest in 2001. Ms. Betts, Alumni Distinguished Professor of English at the University of North Carolina, is the author of ten books of fiction, including Beasts of the Southern Wild, Heading West, Souls Raised from the Dead , and The Sharp Teeth of Love . Ms. Betts chose A House All Stilled by A.G. Harmon .

Photo Courtesy of Jerry Bauer

G eorge Garrett judged the 2000 contest. Mr. Garrett is the author of thirty books--novels, story and poetry collections, biographies, criticism, essays, and dramas--and he is the editor of eighteen other books. He has been the recipient of a PEN/Malamud Award; Ford, Guggenheim, and NEA fellowships; and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Having taught at many colleges and universities, including Hollins, Wesleyan, Bennington, Rice, South Carolina,and Michigan, Garrett is Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia. Mr.Garrett choseThe Marriage of Anna Maye Potts by DeWitt Henry.