Rash a PEN/Faulkner award finalist

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Via the wonderful Southern Highland Reader blog. If you haven’t checked out Serena yet, you need to. 

CULLOWHEE – For the second year in a row, Ron Rash, Parris Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Culture at Western Carolina University, has been named one of four finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the largest peer-juried prize for fiction in the United States.

The honor comes to Rash in recognition of his latest novel “Serena,” which was published by HarperCollins in October. Rash was named a PEN/Faulkner finalist in 2008 for his compilation of short stories, “Chemistry and Other Stories.”

The names of this year’s PEN/Faulker winner and four finalists were announced recently after contest judges reviewed about 350 novels and short story collections written by American authors and published during 2008. Winner Joseph O’Neill, author of the novel “Netherland,” will receive a $15,000 prize, while Rash and the other three finalists receive $5,000 each. All five authors will be honored in a ceremony on Saturday, May 9, at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.