Hal Prize Winner Honored by Council of Wisconsin Writers for Published Work

Seven Wisconsin writers have been named winners of the Wisconsin Writers Awards for work published in 2015. The Council will award each winner $500 and a weeklong writing residency at Shake Rag Alley in Mineral Point. Honorable mentions will receive $50 each. Out-of-state judges made the selections.

The Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award goes to Judith Claire Mitchell, Madison, for A Reunion of Ghosts, Harper Collins.

John Gurda, Milwaukee, is the winner of the Norbert Blei/August Derleth Nonfiction Book Award for Milwaukee, City of Neighborhoods, Historic Milwaukee, Inc.

Ronald Wallace, Madison, is the winner of the Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award for the book For Dear Life, University of Pittsburgh Press.

Gayle Rosengren, Fitchburg, is winner of the Tofte/Wright Children’s Literature Award for Cold War on Maplewood Street, Penguin Random House.

Matt Cashion, La Crosse, is the winner of the Zona Gale Award for Short Fiction for “Any Idiot Can Feel Pain,” Grist.

Ronnie Hess, Madison, is the winner of the Kay W. Levin Short Nonfiction Award for “The Red Shoes,” Peninsula Pulse.

The Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award for five individual poems goes to John Walser, Fond du Lac.

The winner of the Award for Young Writers is Hannah. L. Nies, a junior at Waunakee High School.

The public is invited to attend the CWW’s Awards Banquet at 11 am on May 14, at the Wisconsin Club in Milwaukee. Banquet tickets must be reserved by May 10. For more information visit wiswriters.org.