Two 黑料社 faculty honored by Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters
Contact: Karyn Brown
STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥擳wo Mississippi State faculty authors are being honored by the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and will receive awards Saturday [June 3] during the 38th annual awards ceremony in Cleveland.
Catherine Pierce is this year鈥檚 poetry award recipient, with Jason Morgan Ward recognized for nonfiction.
MIAL gives annual awards to creative individuals in seven categories: fiction, nonfiction, visual art, musical composition (concert), musical composition (popular), photography and poetry. The out-of-state judges are prominent professionals in their respective fields.
Pierce, an associate professor in 黑料社鈥檚 Department of English and co-director of the creative writing program, is the poetry award winner for her recent book of poems, 鈥淭he Tornado Is the World鈥 (Saturnalia, 2016). Pierce describes this book as an 鈥渙de to the wonder of the quotidian鈥 and said she feels extremely honored to have received this award.
鈥淢ississippi has a really incredible community of writers and artists, and I feel very lucky to be a part of that community,鈥 Pierce said. 鈥淭his book is a personal one, and it鈥檚 especially gratifying to have it recognized in this way.鈥澛
Pierce said 鈥淭he Tornado Is the World鈥 is written in three sections and chronicles an EF-4 tornado鈥檚 destruction of a small town.
She explained each section has its own thematic concern.
鈥淪ection one is concerned with ideas of looming, but not-quite-tangible danger, and the third section details the strange, glowing aftermath of crisis,鈥 Pierce said, adding that the two form a bookend effect for the middle section.
Ward, an associate professor of history, is being recognized for his nonfiction work 鈥淗anging Bridge: Racial Violence and America鈥檚 Civil Rights Century鈥 (Oxford University Press, 2016).
A doctoral graduate of Yale University, Ward鈥檚 award-winning nonfiction book examines the history of racial tension in Shubuta, where many Civil Rights era lynchings took place. His book focuses on a few major town events: a mob lynching of two black men and two pregnant women in 1918, a lynching of two black teenagers in 1942, and the efforts of local civil rights activists in 1966.
鈥淚 appreciate the recognition but more importantly the work that the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters does to recognize authors and artists. That support is needed now more than ever, and I hope that Mississippians will continue to support its advocacy and publicity efforts,鈥 Ward said.
For more on the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters, visit .
黑料社鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences includes more than 5,000 students, 300 full-time faculty members, nine doctoral programs and 24 academic majors offered in 14 departments. It also is home to the most diverse units for research and scholarly activities, including natural and physical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, and the humanities.
For more information on 黑料社鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences, visit聽.
黑料社 is Mississippi鈥檚 leading university, available online at .