June 18, 2004

Crab Orchard Review captures arts council award

by K.C. Jaehnig

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- The Crab Orchard Review, Southern Illinois University Carbondale's biannual literary journal edited by Allison E. Joseph, captured one of nine Illinois Arts Council literary awards presented annually to the state's noncommercial publishing houses.

The council awards $1,000 prizes in tandem with $1,000 awards to Illinois writers of specific works that appeared in each publication. The Review won with "My Mother's Recipes," creative nonfiction by Chicago writer J. Weintraub.

David R. Bond, a graduate of SIUC's creative writing program and a technical assistant at the University's Morris Library, won a writer's award for his poem "At the Wellness Center," published by The Spoon River Poetry Review at Normal.

This year's judges were poet Lisa D. Chavez, a member of the creative writing faculty at the University of New Mexico; fiction and screenwriter Rick Hill, a member of the creative writing faculty at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., and poet/fiction writer T.R. Hummer, editor of The Georgia Review.

Leading in research, scholarly and creative activities is among the goals of Southern at 150: Building Excellence Through Commitment, the blueprint for the development of the University by the time it celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2019.