The Tucson Festival of Books 2020 Literary Awards Writing Competition winners have been announced. More than $5,000 in prize money has been awarded to the top three winners in each of three categories: fiction, nonfiction and poetry.
The first-place winners in each category will be featured at the Tucson Festival of Books as presenting authors at the Writing Contest Winners panel at 1 p.m. Sunday, March 15, in the Student Union Sabino Room.
The winners in the nonfiction category are:
First place: Jenny Fran Davis, of Iowa City, Iowa. Her entry was titled “Style Guide.”
Davis is an MFA candidate in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa and author of the novel, “Everything Must Go.”
Second place: Catherine Raven, of Emigrant, Montana. Her entry was titled “Animals Who Tolerate Me.”
Raven has a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences and a B.S. in botany and zoology.
Third place: Caroline Tracey, of Mexico City. Her entry was titled “Daughter Grows a Horizon.”
Tracey is a Mexico City-based writer and geographer.
Winners in the fiction category are:
First place: Tara Deal, of New York. Her entry was titled “Life/Insurance.” Deal is the author of “That Night Alive” and “Palms are Not Trees After All.”
Second place: Charlie Buck, of Tucson. Her entry was titled “Like This.”
Buck works as an Artist-in-the Schools for the University of Arizona’s Poetry Center and is Poet-in-Residence for a third-grade class at Hollinger Elementary School.
Third place: Adrian Fleur, of Durban, South Africa. Her entry was titled “Zithande.”
Fleur was a student of creative writing at the University of Oxford.
Winners in the poetry category are:
First place: Laura Apol, of Lyons, Michigan. Her entries are “Mothering” and other poems.
Apol is a professor at Michigan State University. She is the author of four full-length collections of poetry.
Second place: Jane Craven, of Raleigh, North Carolina. Her entries are “Incidental” and other poems.
Craven has a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and an MFA in Poetry from North Carolina State University.
Third place: Katharine Harer, of San Rafael, California. Her entries are “The Migrant Caravans” and other poems.
Harer has published six books of poetry and has worked as a poet-teacher and as statewide coordinator of the California Poets In the Schools Program.
