Becky Mandelbaum (MA 2016) has been named this year’s winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. As part of the award, Becky’s winning collection of short stories, Bad Kansas, will be published by the University of Georgia Press in fall 2017.

 

Now in its 33rd year, the Flannery O’Connor Award was established to encourage gifted emerging writers by bringing their work to a national readership. Past winners include Ha Jin, Antonya Nelson, Rita Ciresi, and Mary Hood. 

 

Becky wrote the bulk of her story collection while she was in the UC Davis English Department Creative Writing Graduate Program. Her mentor at Davis was Professor Pam Houston, who describes Becky as “wise beyond her years and twice as talented.” A Kansas native, Becky has been living and working in Mount Rainier National Park since graduating from Davis in June.

 

In addition to this prestigious award, Becky is also the winner of the 2013 Lawrence Art Center’s Langston Hughes Award for Fiction. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Great Jones Street, Salt Hill, Juked, South Dakota Review, Midwestern Gothic, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and Kansas City Voices.

 

Photo Credit: Anna Hurst

 

Read More: https://ugapress.wordpress.com/2016/09/19/becky-mandelbaum-wins-the-2016-flannery-oconnor-award-for-short-fiction/