Scrimgeour named winner of NCLR’s Albright Prize
Andrew Scrimgeour of Cary is the winner of the 2020 Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize competition for “Trouble in the Heartland,” which will be published in the North Carolina Literary Review’s (NCLR) 30th issue in 2021. The author will receive $500.
“This piece demonstrates a storyteller’s eye for detail and significant action,” said final judge Philip Gerard. “It’s a kind of reportage with its own narrative intelligence informing the story of a lecture — one fraught with controversy and opening a vein in the moral fiber of many of those who have come to protest. The writing is fluent and restrained, vivid and full of an unusual kind of suspense.”
Scrimgeour’s stories and essays have been published in The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Authors Guild Bulletin, and “The Moment: Wild, Poignant, Life-Changing Stories” (Harper Perennial, 2012). Twice the New York Times published his stories on Christmas weekend, and now he is completing a book of Christmas stories. The author of numerous articles, he is the editor of “Just Call Me Bob: The Wit and Wisdom of Robert W. Funk” (2007) and “The Legacy of Robert W. Funk: Reforming the Scholarly Model” (2018), and he is writing a full-length biography of Funk. In early 2021, Penn State University Press will publish Scrimgeour’s “The Prophetic Quest: The Stained Glass Windows of Jacob Landau,” co-authored by David S. Herrstrom, with photography by Tom Crane. Scrimgeour is Dean of Libraries Emeritus, Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, and lives with his wife Dorothy in Cary.
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For second place, Gerard selected Glenis Redmond’s essay “On Beauty,” saying it “addresses an important subject with verve and passion” and that Redmond “made her points powerfully.” Redmond lived in North Carolina for 17 years and helped create the first writer-in-residence at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock. Her essay will also be published in the 30th issue of NCLR, and the author will receive $300. An interview with her appears in NCLR 2019’s special feature section on African American writers.
Gerard also picked two honorable mentions: “Bird Brained” by Hannah Towey and “Measured” by Susan Wilson. Towey is a junior at UNC Chapel Hill studying journalism and global studies, with a minor in creative writing. Wilson is a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill. Her work has appeared in Flying South, Barely South Review and several anthologies. Each author will receive $100.
The other finalists in this year’s competition were “S.O.S.” by Sarah E. Bode, “Stitch” by Elaine Neil Orr, and “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” also by Susan Wilson.
Gerard is the award-winning author of “Cape Fear Rising,” as well as 13 other fiction and nonfiction works, most recently “The Last Battleground: The Civil War Comes to North Carolina.” He is a professor of creative writing at UNC Wilmington. In fall 2019, Governor Roy Cooper presented him with the North Carolina Award for Literature.
Produced since 1992 at East Carolina University, NCLR has won numerous awards and citations. The Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize was created in 2015 to honor the founding editor of NCLR. Now retired, Albright taught English at ECU for many years. The first Albright Prize winner was published in the 25th issue of NCLR in 2016. The competition requires no submission fee, but writers must subscribe to NCLR to submit. Either the writer or the subject matter of the submission must have a North Carolina connection. For submission information, visit http://www.nclr.ecu.edu. For subscription information, visit http://www.nclr.ecu.edu/subscriptions/.
-Contact: Margaret Bauer, NCLR editor, bauerm@ecu.edu, 252-328-1537