What do Alice Walker, Ferrol Sams, Terry Kay, Ha Jin, Kathryn Stockett and Mary Hood have in common?
Besides being authors with ties to Georgia, they’re all winners of the Townsend Prize for Fiction.
Named after the late Jim Townsend, a revered editor for Atlanta magazine and a mentor to many writers, the prize began in 1982 and is awarded to a Georgia fiction writer every two years — except this year.
There’s been a hiccup in the proceedings due in part to the pandemic but in larger part to the demise of The Chattahoochee Review.
The literary review was started in 1980 by English professor Lamar York at DeKalb College — which later became Georgia Perimeter College and later still, Georgia State University. But back when everyone was distracted by the fear of dying from COVID-19, the review quietly published its final issue in fall 2020.
What that has to do with the Townsend, I’ll explain later. But first, a word about The Chattahoochee Review.
Anna Schachner, who recently retired after nearly 30 years on the English faculty at GPC/GSU, was editor of The Chattahoochee Review for its last decade. Officially, the publication was shuttered for financial reasons related to COVID-19, but she’s still mystified as to why a publication with such a long history of serving the local literary community would be allowed to die.
“The Chattahoochee Review was important because in the writing community at large, journals are a way for writers, especially emerging writers, to gain some street credibility, and we had a very definite focus on emerging writers … including lots of people who were getting published for the first time,” said Schachner. “I think it helped a lot of writers, and I think it created a community.”
Among notable writers who appeared in the review are Larry Brown, Jill McCorkle, Tony Grooms, Judson Mitcham, Beth Ann Fennelly and George Singleton.
Despite her efforts, Schachner was unable to find another home for The Chattahoochee Review, due in a part, once again, to COVID-19, but also due to the fact that she was more focused on finding a home for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, which was managed by The Chattahoochee Review.
“The Townsend was one of my favorite parts of that job,” said Schachner. “It was a lot of work, but it was a joy to promote writers and to celebrate the books. It was a particular joy to have the (award) celebrations where we had those wonderful keynote speakers come in.” They included Jesmyn Ward, Ann Beattie, the late Brad Watson and T. Geronimo Johnson.
Luckily, Schachner had better luck finding a new shepherd for the Townsend Prize: the Atlanta Writers Club.
The Atlanta Writers Club (AWC) has the distinction of being one of — if not the — oldest literary organization in the city. It was founded in 1914 as an elite organization. Membership was by invitation only, and it held formal dinners at the Carnegie Library where men wore tuxes and women wore ballgowns. The organization fell into decline in the late ‘90s but was revived in the early 2000s. Based at the Dunwoody campus of GSU, it now boasts more than 1,100 members and offers a robust program of monthly meetings, workshops, critique groups, writers conferences and scholarships.
And now it is also the keeper of the Townsend Prize for Fiction, but the organization has long been associated with the prize as a sponsor. The new Townsend director is Clay Ramsey, who has held a number of leadership positions with the AWC including president and has served on the Townsend’s reading committee for several years.
“It’s a privilege for us to preserve the legacy of Jim Townsend and the prize, hopefully for many more years,” he said.
The next Townsend Prize for Fiction will be awarded in April 2023, and it will encompass three years of publications to make up for the delay. A committee of seven readers — including former AJC book editor Teresa Weaver and Joe Davich, executive director of the Georgia Center for the Book, also a longtime partner of the Townsend — will pick 10 nominees to be announced by the end of the year. The winner will be selected by a panel of three judges from outside Georgia.
To qualify for the Townsend, a book must be written and published while the author lived in Georgia, and it cannot be self-published. It can be a novel, a novella or a collection of short stories, and it must be literary fiction; poetry and genre fiction such as romance and thrillers are excluded.
To nominate a book published between January 2020 and January 2023, there is a submission form on the Atlanta Writers Club website at atlantawritersclub.org.
The winner will receive a $2,000 cash prize and an engraved silver platter. And they will have the honor of joining the ranks of Walker, Sams, Kay, Jin, Stockett and Hood as one of Georgia’s very best fiction writers.
Suzanne Van Atten is a book critic and contributing editor to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Contact her at svanatten@ajc.com, and follow her on Twitter at @svanatten.
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