Practice what you teach: 熟女少妇English professor鈥檚 creative writing talents honored with Pushcart Prize
Contact: Sasha Steinberg
STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥擟reative writing and fiction are two of Becky Hagenston鈥檚 favorite subjects to teach. With her selection this year for the highly coveted Pushcart Prize, the Mississippi State English professor is proving she鈥檚 got a knack for these areas.
Hagenston鈥檚 short story 鈥淗i Ho Cherry-O鈥 was originally published in the spring 2018 issue of Witness Magazine. Editors of that publication then nominated the story for inclusion in the Pushcart Prize鈥檚 2020 edition, featuring 72 authors from 47 presses.
An 熟女少妇faculty member since 2001, Hagenston said she was 鈥渢hrilled鈥 to have her composition selected for inclusion in the Pushcart Prize anthology, one that she 鈥渁dmires so much as a writer and reader.鈥
鈥淭he poems, essays and stories selected for the Pushcart Prize all come from literary journals and small presses, and they鈥檙e nominated by journal editors and by previous Pushcart winners,鈥 she said. 鈥淭his year鈥檚 edition, Pushcart Prize XLIV, includes writers I鈥檝e admired for years as well as newer writers I鈥檓 excited to discover more about.鈥
Endowed and annually published since 1976 by Wainscott, New York-based nonprofit Pushcart Prize Fellowships Inc., the Pushcart Prize series has been hailed by Publishers Weekly as 鈥渙ne of the most important publishing projects in American history.鈥
In addition to short stories, works eligible for nomination include poems, essays, memoirs, stand-alone excerpts from novels, translations, reprints, as well as traditional and experimental writing.
A Maryland native, Hagenston earned a bachelor鈥檚 degree in 1989 from Elizabethtown College, Master of Fine Arts in 1997 from the University of Arizona, and a master鈥檚 in 2000 from New Mexico State University. She is the author of three award-winning story collections鈥斺淪cavengers,鈥 winner of the Permafrost Book Prize; 鈥淪trange Weather,鈥 winner of the Spokane Prize in Short Fiction; and 鈥淎 Gram of Mars,鈥 winner of Sarabande Books鈥 Mary McCarthy Prize.
Hagenston鈥檚 stories have appeared in such journals as the Oxford American, New England Review, Southern Review and Gettysburg Review. She has won two O. Henry Awards, as well as the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, Reynolds Price Award in Short Fiction, and the Julia Peterkin Award.
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