2022 Award Winners pictured above: (top left to right): Angie Thomas, Ashleigh Burke Coleman, Joshua Nguyen,
Becky Hagenston, Teresa Nicholas, W. Ralph Eubanks, William R. Dunlap; (bottom left to right) Steve Rouse, Jennifer Torres,
Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, Kenneth Holditch, Scott Barretta, Bill Ellison, and Patrick O'Connor

Noel Polk Lifetime Achievement Award

The Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters  is pleased to announce the recipients of the

2022 Noel Polk Lifetime Achievement Award

William Dunlap
 artist, writer, arts advocate and commentator 
​
Kenneth Holditch
Tennessee Williams scholar, professor, essayist, lecturer

​2022  Special Achievement Award
to
Patrick O'Connor
for the documentary film
Look Away, Look Away

2022 Citation of Merit

In recognition and appreciation for their years of contributing to Mississippi's creative community and for hosting two critically acclaimed and beloved MPB Think Radio music shows,
the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters is pleased to present 
Citation of Merit Awards
to
MPB's Grassroots with Bill Ellison
and
MPB's Highway 61 with Scott Barretta



Category Awards

Fiction - Becky Hagenston for The Age of Discovery and Other Stories

Nonfiction - W. Ralph Eubanks for A Place Like Mississippi: A Journey
Through a Real and Imagined Literary Landscape

Life Writing - Teresa Nicholas for The Mama Chronicles

Poetry - Joshua Nguyen for Come Clean

Youth Literature - Angie Thomas for Concrete Rose

Music Composition (Contemporary) - Christone "Kingfish" Ingram for 662

Music Composition (Classical) - Steve Rouse for Where Beauty Persists

Photography - Ashleigh Burke Coleman for Hold Nothing Back

Visual Arts - Jennifer Torres for Garden Boats for Osage Park



 

Visual Arts

2022
​2021 - Cathy Hegman, Holly Bluff - Pandemic Perceptions
2020 - Stacey Johnson, Pass Christian – Storytellers

Photography


2022
​2021 - Andrea Morales, Oxford - Roll Down Like Water
2020 - Will Jacks, Cleveland – Po’ Monkey’s: Portrait of a Juke Joint

Poetry

2022
​2021- Catherine Pierce, Starkville - Danger Days
2020 - C. T. Salazar, Caledonia – This Might Have Meant Fire

Music Composition (Classical)

2022 -
​2021 - James Sclater, Clinton - Angels
2020 - Steve Rouse, Louisville, Kentucky – The Bird, the Bee, and the Bear

Fiction


2022 -
​2021 - Odie Lindsey, Nashville, Tennessee - Some Go Home
2020 - Minrose Gwin, Albuquerque, New Mexico – The Accidentals

Nonfiction

2022 -
​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 - 

Music Composition (Contemporary)

2022 - 
2021 - Steve Azar, Greenville - My Mississippi Reunion
​2020 - Bark (Susa​n and Tim Lee), Knoxville, Tennessee - Terminal Everything

Youth Literature
2022 -
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.