University of Arkansas Press Poetry Book Wins Virginia Literary Award

Book award winners, l-r, Deborah Eisenberg fiction award, Scott Reynolds Nelson nonfiction award, Elizabeth Hadaway, poetry award.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The Library of Virginia and the Library of Virginia Foundation announced their 10^th annual book awards and the winner in the poetry category is Fire Baton, by Elizabeth Hadaway, published by the University of Arkansas Press. Hadaway was presented her $3,000 award and a crystal replica of a book at a gala ceremony in Richmond that honored Virginia authors, including noted novelist Tom Wolfe. Her book was chosen by an independent panel of judges from 128 books nominated for the poetry, fiction and nonfiction awards.

Hadaway, born in Harrisonburg, Va., and raised in Wytheville, taught at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2003. The judges called Fire Baton, which is her first published book, "a stunning debut achievement by a poet whose voice is at once irreverent, gutsy, smart, jaunty, indignant, myth-haunted and provocative in its coverage of Appalachia, religion and society."

The Library of Virginia's annual literary awards were inaugurated in 1997 to recognize the best books published the previous year by a Virginia author. Previous winners of the poetry award include such distinguished poets as Charles Wright, Rita Dove, Gregory Orr and R. T. Smith, whose new collection, Outlaw Style, was recently published by the University of Arkansas Press.

Noted poet Fred Chappell described Fire Baton as "an immense achievement. Here is wit acid and sweet, angry and gentle, tonic and forgiving. Every line shines with the excellence of poetic craft. ... Hadaway's satire is deceptive in its strength. If you think you feel a pinprick, better look again, it may be a bullet hole."

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Thomas Lavoie, director of marketing and sales
University Press
(479) 575-6657, tlavoie@uark.edu