Award-winning novelist, Tom Franklin, and Beth Ann Fennelly, Poet Laureate of Mississippi from 2016-2021, will both receive the Hall-Waters Prize from Troy University on Friday, April 17.
Franklin and Fennelly, who have been married since 2001, will discuss their individual and collaborative works at 9:30 a.m. in the Lamar P. Higgins Ballrooms in the Trojan Center on the Troy Campus. Admission is free and open to the public.
“This year is an exciting opportunity to give the award to two great writers in very different genres who just happened to be married,” said Dr. Kirk Curnutt, Chair of the Department of English. “Beth Ann Fennelly is known for the diversity of her work, both in poetry and prose. Her work is observational in that she explores the meaning of supposedly small aspects of life that are easy to overlook. Whether in her poetry or in this new form that she calls the micro-memoir, she enlivens the little details and dramatizes how the richness of life is in the often-neglected articles and features of everyday existence. Tom Franklin, meanwhile, helped put the Southern Grit genre on the map with dark, sometimes absurdist, takes on violence and survival.”
Franklin is the author of several previous novels, including Hell at the Breech, Smonk, and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, as well as his Edgar Award-winning short story collection Poachers. Fennelly works in a variety of genres to include her poetry collection Tender Hooks, her micro-memoir collection Heat & Cooling, and her current book in the same genre, The Irish Goodbye, published on Feb. 24. In addition, in 2013, they produced a historical novel set in 1920s Mississippi during the Prohibition era and the Great Mississippi Flood. The novel follows the story of a bootlegger who comes upon an abandoned baby, leading to a tale of suspense and murder. Alongside their creative endeavors, the couple are both professors at the University of Mississippi’s Department of English.
The Hall-Waters Prize is endowed by TROY alumnus Dr. Wade Hall, an author, former member of the faculty at the University of Florida and professor emeritus of English at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY.
Dr. Hall, a native of Bullock County, endowed the prize as a memorial to his parents, Wade Hall Sr. and Sarah Elizabeth Waters Hall. The award is presented regularly to a person who has made significant contributions to Southern heritage and culture in history, literature or the arts. Past winners include Rep. John Lewis, Bobbie Ann Mason, Pat Conroy, Natasha Trethewey, Cassandra King, Ace Atkins, and the songwriting team of Dan Pan and Spooner Oldham, among others. A complete history of the award is available here.
For the fifth straight year, English majors in Dr. Curnutt’s senior seminar class have organized the Hall-Waters ceremony, from picking the menu, writing the award citation and publicizing the event.
“The fact that two writers who work in such distinct genres can enjoy a literary partnership is an interesting question to explore,” Dr. Curnutt said. “We’re especially interested in how they collaborate, both creatively and personally.”
