I was honored to learn yesterday morning that my story “World without End” was selected as one of eight finalists for the Doris Betts Fiction Prize, sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network and judged by Liza Wieland, editor of the North Carolina Literary Review. This story was inspired by the 1976 Oscar-winning documentary Harlan Country, USA, which followed 180 coalminers striking against Duke Power in southeast Kentucky. We all know about Harlan from watching Justified these days, but I would recommend this documentary to anyone who wants to learn the bloody history of this part of the country.
In any case, Liza Wieland had some nice things to say about the story:
“I admired ‘World Without End’ for its dark and beautiful writing about murder and vengeance in a coal-mining community,” Wieland said of Brown’s story. “I am reminded of Flannery O’Connor’s injunction that the use of violence in fiction should never be an end in itself, but should show the qualities in the characters which are least dispensable—in this case loyalty and a deep sense of justice.”
Big congratulations go to Laura Herbst, whose story “The Cliffs of Mobenga” took first place!
