VCU news

By Malorie Burkett

RICHMOND, Va. (Sept. 9, 2004) – Virginia Commonwealth University has awarded its prestigious First Novelist Award this year to author Michael Byers for his work “Long for this World,” published by Houghton Mifflin.

VCU’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program gives the award each year to honor a rising new talent in the literary world who has successfully published a first novel in the previous calendar year. The award will be presented at a free event on Friday, Sept. 17 at VCU at 7 p.m.

“The First Novelist Award helps to bring wide attention to remarkable early works of extraordinary writers everywhere,” said Tom De Haven, professor and director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program in VCU’s Department of English. “The overwhelming accomplishment a writer feels when his first novel is completed is rewarding in and of itself, but with this award, we want to recognize that accomplishment as well as provide our students, many of whom are in the process of writing their own first novels, with an opportunity for encouragement and inspiration.”

De Haven, also an accomplished novelist and past recipient of the Virginia Book Award, enlisted the support of VCU alumnus and best-selling author David Baldacci for the First Novelist Award. Baldacci provided the financial support to make the award and presentation possible, as well as funding for a graduate student and a visiting writers series. Baldacci will give opening remarks at the ceremony and also will present the award to Byers, who will give a reading from his book.

A panel discussion will follow, highlighting the journey a new writer assumes in his or her quest to contribute to the literary world. Byers, publicist James Meader of Picador, and editor Fred Ramey of Unbridled Books, as well as local booksellers Kelly Justice of Fountain Bookstore and Janet Franz of Barnes & Noble will discuss the creation, publication and promotion processes involved with a first novel. Moderator for the panel will be local writer Jason Tesauro.

The VCU First Novelist Award recipient is chosen annually by a panel of readers that rates each of the nominated books based on narrative voice, language, character development, plot structure, ending and artistic vision.

Byer’s novel, “Long for this World,” is a medical drama about a geneticist who studies a fictitious condition, Hickman syndrome, which causes children to age rapidly and die as teenagers.

Past recipients of the First Novelist Award include Isabel Zuber for “Salt,” and Maribeth Fischer for “The Language of Good-bye.”

Originally from Seattle, Byers is a resident of Pittsburgh and teaches writing at the University of Pittsburgh. His first book of fiction, “The Coast of Good Intentions,” a collection of short stories, won the Susan Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Byers also was awarded a Whiting Foundation Writer’s Award in 1998. Byers received his MFA from the University of Michigan.

This year’s award presentation will take place Friday, Sept. 17 at VCU’s W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts, 922 Park Ave. The event will begin at 7 p.m. and is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the ceremony. For more information, visit http://www.has.vcu.edu/eng/resources/first_novelist.htm.