James Baker Hall Foundation Book Award
The first thing we did was to establish the James Baker Hall Book award, an annual competition to celebrate accomplishment and reward excellence in Kentucky letters. The award is given to the best manuscript received from a Kentucky author as judged by well-credentialed juror(s) in each year's genre. In addition to the winner, three finalists are recognized. The award honors Jim and all the past great Kentucky authors, many of whom have been inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame at the Carnegie Center in Lexington.
Our mission strategy is for the Book Award to grow as a highlight in the literary calendar of the Commonwealth each year, a coveted marker of the heritage we celebrate and work to preserve. As word gets out our reach will expand to include artistic communities surrounding the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
The Book Award will also serve as a fulcrum to promote Kentucky as a destination for artists, where they can find welcoming communities of creatives and programs such as ours which support their work.
The possibilities for future iterations and influences of the book award are many. It may be offered with a residency component. We may split genres and have two or even three awards each year; e.g. poetry, short fiction and long fiction. In the future, our goal is to use of regional awards to prompt engagement and community development.
The inaugural James Baker Hall Book Award in 2024 was awarded to an emerging Kentucky poet, Wesley Houp, for his collection Strung Out Along the Endless Branch. The award is granted with a $3,000 cash stipend, a contract with Accents Publishing an invitation to join Kentucky Writers on The Road to promote their work across the commonwealth.
Our strategy is integrated vertically, success for the Foundation hinges on keeping the writers we touch engaged in the ongoing work of community building and mentoring - not only seeing their own work published and available for sale, but helping others to do so as well. It is the responsibility we carry, a commitment to the identification and development of the next generation of young writers and artists.
Our speaking tour, Kentucky Writers on the Road (KYOTR) is our solution to continuing engagement and community building, is a yearlong speaking tour around the Commonwealth, which will involve not only the finalists of the Book Award but young writers as well. East to West, North to South, we take our Kentucky Writers on The Road.
2024 Book Award Winner, Wesley Houp
Wesley was born and raised in High Bridge and Wilmore, Kentucky. Along with his father and brother, he farmed tobacco along the Kentucky River in southern Jessamine County for most of his life. Education took him away to various stops and he received a Ph.D in Composition and Rhetoric from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Over the years he has taught English to undergraduate and graduate students as well serving as Writing Center Director at several universities. For the better part of the past decade, he has worked for Tennessee State Parks.
His poems have appeared in numerous journals, and he has also published scholarly articles, but by no means does his talent end with writing. He is also a blues musician with a special interest in early twentieth century acoustic blues and he performs regularly with the Galliniperious Consortium , a group of musicians who play old time jug, fiddle and blues tunes on the back of a 33 Ford BB flatbed!
“We couldn't be more pleased with our book award,” states Managing Director Lawrence Pemble. “And we learned from Wesley that as a young aspiring poet, he actually had read with my father and attended workshops that he taught.” Larry continues, “We couldn’t have done this without Accents Publishing and their leadership and of course, many thanks to Greg Pape who served as our judge. We are grateful to both of them.”
For his winning submission, Wesley will receive a $3,000 award from the foundation and a publishing contract with Accents Publishing with his book of poems being published in 2025.
James Baker Hall Foundation 2025 Book Award Application Information
2024 Book Award
The annual Book Award competition rewards excellence in a Kentucky author's work, providing a substantial stipend and publication. Genres vary yearly. The 2024 award for Poetry was jurored by former Montana Poet Laureate Greg Pape (visiting Writer In Residence at Spalding University) who identified three finalists and selected emerging poet George Wesley Houp of Jessamine County for his Strung Out Along The Endless Branch manuscript the winner. The volume of poems is Wesley’s first, written over more than two decades and will be published by Accents Publishing in May of 2025.
2025 Book Award
In April of 2025, we will again open submissions for the 2025 Book Award. The grant will be awarded for the best collection of short fiction, previously unpublished as a collection and the author being from Kentucky or having some tie to the state.
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2025 Book Award Application Information
We are pleased that Accents Publishing will again be our partner for the 2025 James Baker Hall Book Award, Collected Short Fiction. Submission window is April 24 to June 30, 2025. We have the good fortune to say that the competition will be jurored by Toni Ann Johnson, a much-decorated poet, screenwriter, actress, and winner of the 2012 ‘Henry Award’ for Short Fiction. Toni, originally from New York, New York, now lives in Los Angeles, California. Read more about her here:
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