AMERICAN MASCULINE

Winner of the Bakeless Prize

Shann Ray's American Masculine: Montana Stories, winner of the prestigious Katherine Bakeless Nason Literary Publication Prize, features stories of vacant men who sometimes turn and seek self-transcendence and authentic love in the midst of the complexity of the human condition. The Prize is conducted by the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the collection will be published with Graywolf Press in June of 2011.

Words from Michael Collier, Director of Bread Loaf
Poetry Editor, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt:
"Since 1926 the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference has convened every August in the shadow of Bread Loaf Mountain, in Vermont’s Green Mountains, where Middlebury College maintains a summer campus. The conference, founded by Robert Frost and Willa Cather – a generation before creative writing became a popular course of study – brings together established poets and prose writers and editors to work with writers at various stages of their careers.

While part of Bread Loaf’s reputation was built on the writers associated with it–W. H. Auden, Wallace Stegner, Katherine Anne Porter, Toni Morrison, and Adrienne Rich, to name a few–it has an equally high reputation for finding and supporting writers of promise in the earliest stages of their careers. Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, Anne Sexton, May Swenson, Russell Banks, Joan Didion, Richard Ford, Julia Alvarez, Carolyn Forché, Linda Pastan, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Andrea Barrett, and Tim O’Brien are some of the poets, novelists, and short story writers who benefited from early associations with Bread Loaf.

The Katharine Bakeless Nason Literary Publication Prizes were established in 1995 to expand Bread Loaf’s commitment to the support of emerging writers. Endowed by the LZ Francis Foundation, whose directors wished to commemorate Middlebury College patron Katherine Bakeless Nason and to encourage emerging writers, the Bakeless Prizes launch the publication career of a poet, fiction writer, and creative nonfiction writer annually. Winning manuscripts are chosen in an open national competition by a distinguished judge in each genre. (Past judges include Andrea Barrett, Ursula Hegi, Francine Prose, Edward Hirsch, Tomas Mallon, Louise Glück, and Yusef Komunyakaa.) The winning books are published in August to coincide with the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the authors are invited to participate as Bakeless Fellows.

Since they first appeared in 1996, the winning Bakeless books have been critical successes. As a result, the Bakeless Prizes are coveted among new writers. The fact that Graywolf Press publishes these books is significant, joining together one of the preeminent literary presses in the country with an equally distinguished writers’ conference. The collaboration speaks to the commitment of both institutions to cultivate the literary arts in America."

Thoughts from Shann on the Katherine Bakeless Nason Prize:
“In receiving the honor of the Bakeless Prize I feel such gratitude— gratitude to my family for all they've given, gratitude to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and to Graywolf Press, two of the finest literary establishments in America, and gratitude to friends and colleagues at Gonzaga University where the Jesuit tradition of cura personalis—educating the heart, mind, and soul—is a vivid part of cultivating the imagination.  Gonzaga has provided me with a sanctuary for the pursuit of scholarly work in leadership and forgiveness studies as well as the pursuit of the literary arts: a place of vital engagement with the most ultimate truths of our global humanity.  I believe art and science can give us the opportunity to face despair with longing, forgiveness, responsibility, and the generosity that is often a subtle but profound undercurrent even in the chaos of contemporary life.  Van Gogh said, ‘The greatest work of art is to love someone.’ I agree.  An artistic sense of love brings about justice and engenders grace.  I believe the artistry involved in truly loving and serving others is inherently imbued with legitimate power.  In the artists I look to for direction—from van Gogh to Bach, from Alice Walker to Mary Oliver--it is this power that helps heal the heart of the world.” 

*Buffalo photo by Oli Gardner, www.oligardner.com
** Shann's photo by Vanessa Kay