The Townsend Prize for Fiction is awarded biennially (that is, every two years) to a writer from the U.S. state of Georgia for the best novel published during those years, by the Georgia Center for the Book and The Chattahoochee Review at Georgia Perimeter College, which assumed sponsorship of the award in 1997 from Georgia State University. The award was named in honor of the founding editor of Atlanta magazine, Jim Townsend. It was first granted in 1982.
For more in-depth information about The Townsend Prize for Fiction, including its history and criteria for eligibility visit the prize's new web site hosted by Georgia Perimeter College at http://gpc.edu/townsend.
The awarding of the 2014 Townsend Prize for Fiction took place on Thursday, April, 24, 2014 at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. The novel God Carlos by Anthony C. Winkler won the prize. The keynote address was presented by celebrated author and National Book Award Winner, Ms. Jesmyn Ward. The nine other finalists for the 2014 award were:
Accidents of Providence by Stacia Brown
The Starboard Sea by Amber Dermont
Someone Else's Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson
Where You Can Find Me by Sheri Joseph
Pickett's Charge by Charles McNair
I Want to Show You More: Stories by Jamie Quatro
A True History of the Captivation, Transport to Strange Lands, & Deliverance of Hannah Guttentag by Josh Russell
A Place at the Table by Susan Rebecca White
Emerson's Brother by Philip Lee Williams
Details about the next awarding of the prize will be made available on the prize's web site beginning in January 2016.
Celestine Sibley, Children, My Children (1982)
Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1984)
Philip Lee Williams, The Heart of a Distant Forest (1986)
Mary Hood, And Venus Is Blue (1988)
Sara Flanigan, Alice (1989)
Charlie Smith, The Lives of the Dead (1990)
Ferrol Sams, When All the World Was Young (1991)
Pam Durban, The Laughing Place (1994)
JoAllen Bradham, Some Personal Papers (1996)
Judson Mitcham, The Sweet Everlasting (1998)
James Kilgo, Daughter of My People (2000)
Ha Jin, The Bridegroom (short story collection) (2002)
Terry Kay, The Valley of Light (2004)
Judson Mitcham, Sabbath Creek (2006)
Renee Dodd, A Cabinet of Wonders (2008)
Kathryn Stockett, The Help (2010)
Thomas Mullen, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers (2012)
Mary Hood, "A Clear View of the Southern Sky" (2016)
