Barbara Kingsolver is pleased to announce the first winner
of the newly established Bellwether Prize for Fiction. Donna M.
Gershten of Denver, Colorado, will receive the $25,000 award for
her first novel, Kissing the Virgin's Mouth, and a contract with
HarperCollins Publishers. Gershten received an MFA in
Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College and has
previously published short stories in literary journals.
She also holds a BS in Multicultural Counseling, and has
worked as a self-defense instructor for women. Her novel
is scheduled for a spring, 2001 release from HarperCollins.
This year's Bellwether Prize was judged by writers Grace Paley,
Ruth Ozeki, and HarperCollins editor Terry Karten.
"First I fell for the music of her voice, her passion,
and the timbre of her prose," said Ozeki of the winning
entry, "but finally what won me was the strength and
breadth of her vision of women as mothers and daughters,
citizens and whores-utterly pragmatic dreamers with the
grace to give thanks from the heart." Gershten's novel,
selected from more than 120 qualifying entries, tells
the story of a woman finding her way from childhood to
worldly survival in a destitute barrio in Teatlán, Mexico,
against a jarring backdrop of tourism and extravagant wealth.
Kingsolver, founder of the prize and speaking on behalf
of its board of directors, called the work "a beautifully
written, lyrical novel that carries exactly the kind of
political boldness and subtlety we're hoping to
promote with this prize. Its heroine is irresistible
for her smart sexiness, her moral complexities, and
her refusal to be a victim as she constructs her own
ideology of female survival against the tyrannies of
her culture. This is the kind of book you inhale in
one breath and can't forget afterward. It sets a
standard for what we're defining as a literature of
social responsibility."
The Bellwether Prize is awarded in even-numbered years
to an unpublished manuscript by a writer who has not
yet published a major book. Submissions
for the next competition will be accepted in
September 2001.
