Authors of all ages honored at 2025 William Faulkner Literary Luncheon in New Albany
The 2025 William Faulkner Literary Luncheon was held on Friday, September 26, at First Methodist Church in New Albany. The event honored winners of this year’s William Faulkner Literary Competition and featured a talk from award-winning author Beth Ann Fennelly.
Lynn Madden, Chair of the Literary Committee, gave opening remarks acknowledging the hard work of the many organizations, civic groups and civic-minded people who made the event possible. In addition to many entries from Mississippi writers, this year’s William Faulkner Literary Competition received entries from 37 states and 10 countries including China, New Zealand, Ireland, Portugal and Canada. Soon after the entry deadline, entries are submitted to selected judges, with no information about the authors. Winning authors share $6000 in cash prizes.
Victoria Brown introduced the winners from the elementary school poetry competition. These were put together through a literary workshop which took place at the Union County Heritage Museum and was sponsored by the Rotary Club. Ms. Brown also showed illustrations created by the students inspired by artist Walter Anderson. Fourth grade participants were asked to write haikus, a Japanese poetry form. Fifth grade participants submitted freestyle poems about their favorite authors. Each of the 4th and 5th grade winners came to read their poems in turn.
Ms. Madden returned to the podium to announce the winners of this year’s competition (which can be found in full below). Most of the winners and honorees, hailing from all over the US and Canada, were sadly unable to attend in person. Those who were able to attend were presented with their certificates and monetary awards in person. According to Ms. Madden, eight winning novels have been published since she began working on the competition in 2012.
Readings by Beth Ann Fennelly
Ms. Madden introduced the luncheon’s keynote speaker, Beth Ann Fennelly. Fennelly, an award-winning author, was poet laureate of Mississippi from 2016-2021 and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi. Her seventh book, The Irish Goodbye: Micro Memoirs, is due to be published in 2026.
Fennelly began by saying her favorite class to teach is Mississippi literature. It gives her an opportunity to remind her students that while Mississippi may have the country’s highest teenage pregnancy and infant mortality rates, we also lead the nation in Pulitzer Prize winning authors.
The audience was treated to a reading by Fennelly of her humorous and moving poem regarding her hopes for her sons’ future homelives. In the poem, she prays that God bless her sons with spouses who possess skills in the kitchen – and the humility to know better than to attempt to best their mother’s beef bourguignon.
Fennelly, a Chicago native, spoke about moving to our state years ago with her husband and how Mississippi became their forever home. She read excerpts from a piece she called “The Kudzu Chronicles” about the tenacious plant that was brought from Japan and has planted its roots deep in our rich soil.
She concluded by reading humorous anecdotes from her forthcoming book. The first was about an unsettling occurrence when she rented her home out to visiting LSU football fans, and the second a humorous slice of married life.
William Faulkner Literary Competition Winners – 2025
Novel
- Winner: Throwing a Butterfly into your Neighbor’s Mailbox: The Pilar Medina Story by Ben Orlando – Arlington, VA
- Honorable Mention: Eva’s Secret by Michael Fryd – Philadelphia, PA
Short Story
- 1st Place: “Quietly, In the Dark” by George Kehoe – Oxford, MS
- 2nd Place: “My Nephew, My Vacuous Nephew” by Anna Wang – La Jolla, CA
- 3rd Place: “Neither Comedy or Tragedy” by Elizabeth Weinstein – Tully, NY
- Honorable Mention: “The Atonements” by Richard Leslie Brock – Indio, CA
- Honorable Mention: “Two is Company” by August J. Esquire – Quebec, Canada
- Honorable Mention: “What’s for Dinner?” by Allia Zobel Nolan – Norwalk, CT
Poetry
- 1st Place: “The Empty Chair” by Joseph Kent – Etta, MS
- 2nd Place: “The Garden” by Jon Ross Myers – Ripley, MS
- 3rd Place: “These Hands” by Jacquelyn Cynkar – Pittsburg, PA
- Honorable Mention: “Forbidden Fruit” by Howard Brown – Lookout Mountain, TN
- Honorable Mention: “Is My Mama Dead” by Sue Jensen – Salt Lake City, Utah
- Honorable Mention: “My Wife” by Joseph Kent – Etta, MS
One Act Play
- 1st Place: “Out of the Woods” by Robert Weibezahl – Westlake Village, CA
- 2nd Place: “Mimosa” by Jediah Craig – Berkeley, CA
- 3rd Place: “Drag Me Away” by Chuck Rybak – Green Bay, WI
- Honorable Mention: “There’s Always Tomorrow” by Sonya Hayden – New York, NY
Student Short Story
1st Place: “Three Things” by Kierstyn Warner of Natchez, MS – Mississippi School of the Arts
4th Grade Excel Poetry Workshop Winners
- 1st Place: Annie Covington
- 2nd Place: River Farrell
- 3rd Place: Mary Clayton Muncie
5th Grade Excel Poetry Workshop Winners
- 1st Place: Mac Stanton
- 2nd Place: Kaitlyn Kennedy
- 3rd Place: Coleson Dodd
