Judges for the Carrie McCray Memorial Literary Awards

We are proud to present the judges for this year's Carrie McCray Literary Awards.

Poetry

Ken Autrey, a native of Alabama, is an Emeritus Professor of English at
Francis Marion University in Florence, SC. Previously, he served as a Peace
Corps teacher in Ghana, a writing teacher at Tougaloo College in
Mississippi, and a visiting professor at Hiroshima University in Japan. He
earned a B.A. degree from Davidson College and graduate degrees from Auburn
University and the University of South Carolina. His poems have appeared in
Atlanta Review, Chattahoochee Review, Cimarron Review, Poetry Northwest,
South Carolina Review, Southern Poetry Review, and elsewhere. His work is
included in various anthologies, such as The Southern Poetry Anthology:
South Carolina. His chapbook, Pilgrims, was published in 2010 by Main Street
Rag. He and his wife Janne live in Columbia. He has two daughters and five
grandchildren.

Phebe Davidson, long recognized as a leading South Carolina poet, is the author of twenty-three published collections of poems including Seven Mile (Main Street Rag Publishing Co., 20110), The Surface of Things (David Robert Books, 2009), Fat Moon Rising (Main Street Rag Publishing Co., 200) and now the long awaited Plasma Justice (Main Street Rag Publishing Col, 2011). Whether her subject matter is late night cop shows, the mysterious joys of family life, or the strangely compelling substrate of fairy tales, Davidson consistently delivers people that sizzle and snap in the readers mind. A Contributing Editor at Tar River Poetry and a staff writer for The Asheville Poetry Review, Davidson has received multiple nominations for a Push Cart Prize and holds several national awards Her work has been featured on the web at The Cortland Review, Verse Daily, and Town Creek Poetry and in print in The Kenyon Review, the South Carolina Review and Kakalak.

Maureen Sherbondy resides in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her short stories have appeared in numerous publications, including Southeast Review, Stone Canoe, The Chapel Hill News, and the North Carolina Literary Review. One of Maureen’s stories was selected as a runner-up in the William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition; another story won the Piccolo Spoleto Fiction Open. Her poems have won first place in: The Deane Ritch Lomax Poetry Prize (Charlotte Writers’ Club), The Lyricist Statewide Poetry Contest, and the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Award from Kent State University. Main Street Rag Publishing Company published her first chapbook, After the Fairy Tale, in 2007. Praying at Coffee Shops was published in February, 2008. The Slow Vanishing, a short story collection, was released this past fall. Maureen teaches writing workshops and also leads an open mike night.





Short Fiction

Marti Healy is a professional writer, published author, and newspaper columnist. The majority of her career was with an Indianapolis communications firm, serving as vice president and senior writer. She moved to Aiken, SC, in 2004. Healy has authored three books: The Secret Child, a novel that was a 2010 SIBA Okra Pick; The Rhythm of Selby, a novel that received a 2009 IPPY Awards Bronze Medal for popular fiction and two Indie Awards for writing and design; and The God-Dog Connection, a faith-based, animal-oriented book that garnered a warm endorsement by well-known actress and animal advocate, Betty White.

Dennis McDonald retired as an English Professor at Iowa Lakes Community
College in 2009. He continues to teach online short fiction. Prior to
teaching, McDonald worked as a freelance writer. His writing appeared in
Newsweek and other national publications, earned two national awards, and
resulted in a speaking engagement at Harvard University. He is currently at
work on a book of poetry about plants and vegetables, and a memoir about
childhood experiences growing up on a farm in Northwest Iowa.

Dr. Mark Sibley-Jones is a professor at the University of South Carolina where he has taught for fifteen years, including five years within the Honors College. Although his area of expertise is in contemporary fiction and Renaissance English Literature, his interests are wide and varied. As in most of his literature courses, Sibley-Jones emphasizes discussion as the catalyst of learning and the exploration of ideas. His Fall 2011 focus on Civil War literature was in part inspired by his research for a novel he is writing which takes place in that era. Outside of the classroom, Dr. Sibley-Jones serves as editor-in-chief of the Association of Honors Alumni Magazine, AHA!. In 2007 the Honor Students presented him with the Michael A. Hill Award.


Short Non Fiction

Joanna Biggar is a teacher, writer, and traveler whose special places of the heart include the California coast and the South of France. A professional writer for more than 25 years, her poetry, fiction, personal essays, feature, news and travel articles have appeared in hundreds of publications, including The Washington Post Magazine, Psychology Today, The International Herald Tribune, The People’s Daily, and The Wall Street Journal.
She has taught writing and journalism for over twenty-five years, both in greater Washington, D.C., at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and in California. In recent years, she has taught travel writing workshops in France, Greece, Ireland, and Italy, served as a judge for journalism awards for the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a co-chair of the Bay Area Group of the Society of Woman Geographers.

Barbara Outland is a publishing consultant and writer living in Rich Square, North Carolina. She is the former marketing manager for Louisiana State University Press, where she served on the press’s project review committee and spent 15 years promoting scholarly and trade books, including two winners of the Pulitzer Prize, several National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalists, and numerous other prizewinners. She holds a master’s degree in American history from LSU.

Rose Solari is a poet, novelist, playwright and cofounder of Alan Squire Publishing (ASP), a literary publishing house (a small press … with big ideas) in Washington DC. She is the author of two full-length collections of poems, Orpheus in the Park and Difficult Weather, as well as two chapbooks of poems, Selections from Myths & Elegies and The Stolen World. Rose wrote and performed in the multi-media play Looking for Guenevere, an Arthurian retelling, and is currently at work on a historical novel. In 2010, she made her third consecutive appearance at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival in Oxford, England. Rose is a longtime faculty member of the Writer's Center, in Bethesda, Maryland, and serves on the Board of Directors.


Novel, First Chapter

Mary Glickman is a writer, public relations professional, and fundraiser. Born on the south shore of Boston, Glickman studied at the Université de Lyon and Boston University. After living in Boston for twenty years, she and her husband traveled to South Carolina and discovered a love for all things Southern. Glickman's first novel, Home in the Morning, was published as an E-riginal by Open Road Integrated Media in 2010. The bestselling novel tells the story of a Jewish family confronting the tumult of the 1960s—exploring the transition from the Old South to the New South. Home in the Morning has been optioned for film by Sundance director Jim Kohlberg. Glickman's second novel is forthcoming. She currently lives in Seabrook Island, South Carolina, with her husband, cat, and beloved horse, King of Harts.

Linda Watanabe McFerrin, poet, travel writer, and novelist, is a contributor to numerous newspapers, magazines and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry collections, past editor of a popular Northern California guidebook and a winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. Her novel, Namako: Sea Cucumber, was named Best Book for the Teen-Age by the New York Public Library. In addition to authoring an award-winning short story collection, The Hand of Buddha, she has co-edited several anthologies, including the Hot Flashes: sexy little stories & poems series. Her latest novel, Dead Love (2010, Stone Bridge Press) was short-listed as a William Faulkner-William Wisdom Finalist and is a finalist for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel. Linda has judged the San Francisco Literary Awards, the Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence and the Kiriyama Prize, served as a visiting mentor for the Loft Mentor Series and been guest faculty at the Oklahoma Arts Institute. A past NEA Panelist and juror for the Marin Literary Arts Council and the founder of Left Coast Writers®, she has led workshops in Greece, France, Italy, Ireland, Central America and the United States and has mentored a long list of accomplished writers toward publication.

Lise Saffran grew up in Marin County, California in the shadow of Mt. Tamalpais and attended college in Eugene, Oregon. She earned her MFA at the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop in Iowa City, after she had already pursued an advanced degree and career in public health. While at Iowa she was an Iowa Arts Fellow and has also received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Hedgebrook. She is currently Associate Director of the Master of Public Health Program at the University of Missouri. Still, between job and family she finds time to write. Her first novel, Juno’s Daughters, which is set in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State has been hailed as "wonderfully immersive" (Publisher's Weekly) and "a heartwarming tale of the mother-daughter relationship" (Booklist). Her stories and essays have been published in a variety of literary magazines and her story “Men and Fish” is part of the Granta anthology of adoption stories called Family Wanted.