HOW ALL THIS STARTED

       

  A NOTE FROM MARY ELIZABETH PARKER

I started the Dana Awards in 1996 (named after my husband Michael Dana since he's the financial backer, as needed) as a way to recognize and reward excellent fiction and poetry.

My husband is a supporter of good literature but not a writer himself (except of incisive business reports and letters to the editor). But he did back a city-wide magazine years before we met.

I'm a college professor and counselor on a long hiatus, focusing on my own writing. I hold both an MFA in creative writing and a Ph.D. in literature from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. I'm originally from Michigan. Michael's originally from everywhere--holds quadruple citizenship and knows four languages.

Just so you'll know I'm a working writer like you, I'll say that I have published, but my success is modest.  I'm usually the bridesmaid (finalist), rarely the bride. But scores of single poems, a half-dozen short stories, and a handful of my essays have been published in literary journals. Small presses have published a full-length book of my poems as well as two poetry chapbooks.

My full-length collection THE SEX GIRL (no, it's not x-rated) was published  by Urthona Press, Asheville, NC  as winner of the Second Urthona Poetry Prize, William Blake Poetry Series.

I've read poems and essays for local public radio.  One of my short stories was bought by NPR for  Sound of Writing but not produced due to NEA cuts.

My short story "Guayaquil to Rock Hill: The President of Ecuador Finds Love" was named among the top 25 finalists in STORY Magazine's 1997 Famous Short Fiction competition, and I was among the top 25 in Glimmer Train's October 2001 Poetry Open.

In 1996, the cassette version of a print anthology GROW OLD ALONG WITH ME, THE BEST IS YET TO BE (Papier Mache Press, Watsonville, CA) in which I had a story, was 1 of 5 cassette books nominated for a GRAMMY Award in the Non-Music, Spoken Word category (my story "Papier-Mache" was read on cassette by CCH Pounder).  GROW OLD's cassette lost to Hillary Clinton's cassette version of IT TAKES A VILLAGE

In 2000 my poem "Lake Woman" was published in EARTH AND SOUL, an anthology published in Durham, NC and in its sister region, Kostroma, Russia.

I've been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and have two published chapbooks of poetry (THAT STUMBLING RITUAL, 1980, Coraddi Press, University of North Carolina-Greensboro, and BREATHING IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY, 1994, winner of South Carolina's 1993 Kinloch Rivers Memorial Competition).

I have two novels seeking publishers, LEILA APPROACHING PARIS and ALBERT HASKINS' WOMEN.

If you'd like to ferret out how I think and write, check out an interview with me in the online journal MARGIN: Exploring Modern Magical Realism, titled "One Poet's Paradox: Wanting to Believe" athttp://www.angelfire.com/wa2/margin/Parker.html

Best,

FOR QUESTIONS ONLY, E-MAIL AT THIS ADDRESS danaawards@pipeline.com

or

  E-MAIL AT THIS ADDRESS danaawards@gmail.com