2022 Award Winners pictured above: (top row, left to right): Johnny Rawls, Coulter Fussell, Berkley Hudson, Linda Williams Jackson, Robert S. McElvaine, and Sarah Adlakha; (second row, left to right): David Rae Morris, Panny Flautt Mayfield, Steve Rouse, and Melissa Ginsburg
The Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2023
Category Awards
Fiction – Midnight on the Marne by Sarah Adlakha, Ocean Springs
Nonfiction – The Times They Were a-Changin’ by Robert S. McElvaine, Clinton
Life Writing – O. N. Pruitt’s Possum Town by Berkley Hudson, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Poetry – Doll Apollo by Melissa Ginsburg, Oxford
Youth Literature – The Lucky Ones by Linda Williams Jackson, Southaven
Music Composition (Contemporary) – Going Back to Mississippi by Johnny Rawls, Purvis
Music Composition (Classical) – Quadrabonix by Steve Rouse, Louisville, Kentucky
Photography – Love, Daddy: Letters from My Father by David Rae Morris, New Orleans, Louisiana
Visual Arts – My Love for You Is Deathless by Coulter Fussell, Water Valley
Special Achievement Award to Tupelo Reads a collaborative effort by the Lee County Library, City of Tupelo, Reeds Gumtree Bookstore, Tupelo High School, Boys and Girls Clubs, and interested citizens to promote literacy and lifelong learning.
Noel Polk Lifetime Achievement Award to Panny Flautt Mayfield Clarksdale for her extensive support of arts and letters in Mississippi. Mayfield is an award-winning journalist who has photographed and written about blues and gospel music, playwright Tennessee Williams, and Delta life for decades. She is also the founding director of the Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Literary Festival.
Visual Arts
2022 - Jennifer Torres, Hattiesburg - Garden Boats for Osage Park 2021 - Cathy Hegman, Holly Bluff - Pandemic Perceptions 2020 - Stacey Johnson, Pass Christian – Storytellers
Photography
2022 - Ashleigh Burke Coleman, Ackerman - Hold Nothing Back 2021 - Andrea Morales, Oxford - Roll Down Like Water 2020 - Will Jacks, Cleveland – Po’ Monkey’s: Portrait of a Juke Joint
Poetry
2022 - Joshua Nguyen, Oxford - Come Clean 2021- Catherine Pierce, Starkville - Danger Days 2020 - C. T. Salazar, Caledonia – This Might Have Meant Fire
Music Composition (Classical)
2022 - Steve Rouse, Louisville, Kentucky - Where Beauty Persists 2021 - James Sclater, Clinton - Angels 2020 - Steve Rouse, Louisville, Kentucky – The Bird, the Bee, and the Bear
Fiction
2022 - Becky Hagenston, Starkville - The Age of Discovery and Other Stories 2021 - Odie Lindsey, Nashville, Tennessee - Some Go Home 2020 - Minrose Gwin, Albuquerque, New Mexico – The Accidentals
Nonfiction
2022 - W. Ralph Eubanks, Washington, D.C. - A Place Like Mississippi: A Journal Through a Real and Imagined Literary Landscape 2021 - Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Princeton, New Jersey - Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own 2020 - Margaret McMullan, Pass Christian - Where the Angels Lived: One Family’s Story of Exile, Loss, and Return
Life Writing 2022 -Teresa Nicholas, Jackson - The Mama Chronicles: A Memoir
Music Composition (Contemporary)
2022 - Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, Clarksdale - 662 2021 - Steve Azar, Greenville - My Mississippi Reunion 2020 - Bark (Susan and Tim Lee), Knoxville, Tennessee - Terminal Everything
Youth Literature 2022 - Angie Thomas, Ridgeland - Concrete Rose 2021 - Deborah Wiles, Tucker, Georgia - Kent State 2020 - Angie Thomas, Ridgeland - On the Come Up
Previous Winners
Download the list of previous winners by clicking on the file below. MIAL Previous Winners
2019 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. All rights reserved.