The 2024 Porter Fleming Literary Competition Award Winners 

The winners of the 2024 Porter Fleming Literary Competition have been announced by the Morris Museum of Art. They are:

Fiction

1st Place: Thomas McConnell, Spartanburg, SC; Broke Hand

2nd Place: Heather Adams, Raleigh, NC; Palm Springs Rendezvou

3rd Place: Anna Schachnar, Atlanta, GA; Porcupette

Judge: Walter Evans, a Professor Emeritus at Augusta University, has  taught fiction and creative writing for more than forty years.

Non-Fiction

1st Place: William David, Aiken, SC; Ground Zero

2nd Place: Gena Thomas, Concord, NC; Invasives and Salvation

3rd Place: Beth Ann Fennelly, Oxford, MS; Dear Viewer of My Naked Body: On Robert Townsend and the Oxford 12

Judge: Barry Yeoman is an award-winning journalist who also teaches at both Duke University and Wake Forest University.  His most recent work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Baffler, Audubon Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, National Wildlife, and The Assembly.

Plays

1st Place: Olivia Kathryn Byrd, Rockledge, FL; Limits of Empathy

2nd Place: Jonathan Cook, North Augusta, SC; Butcher Pete

3rd Place: Rick Davis, Augusta, GA; One Life Saver, One Baby Ruth, One All Day Sucker

Judge: Scott Seidl, playwright, choreographer, and director, is the executive and artistic director of the Augusta Players.

Poetry

1st Place: Amy Sladky, Edgefield, SC; “The Future is Foreshortening”

2nd Place: Frances Pearce, Mt. Pleasant, SC; “Down Feather”

3rd Place: Ed Wilson, Augusta, GA; “How the 2^nd Violin Played”

Honorable Mentions:

Emily Rosko, Charleston, SC;   “Limerance Ode” and “Sunbreak”

Ed Wilson, Augusta, GA; “Slightly Before You Were Born,” “Tenant House,” “Little League,” “Guided Tour,” “To the Dogs,” “Bottle Tree” and “You Reading This”

Corinna Munn, New Orleans, LA; "“Ode to a Flight Attendant”

Judge: Alan Shapiro,  the William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a renowned American poet and the author of thirteen collections of poetry.

The Porter Fleming Literary Competition, recognizing talented writers who reside in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington D.C. was established in 1993 by Shirley Fleming to honor her late father, noted author and artist Berry Fleming. Funded by the Porter Fleming Foundation, which is administered by the Trustees of the Academy of Richmond County, the competition is organized and administered by the Morris Museum of Art. The Porter Fleming Foundation was established by Berry Fleming in 1963 as a memorial to his father, Porter Fleming, a prominent Augustan and one of the city’s leading philanthropists.