UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS WRITERS NAB TWO PRESTIGIOUS LITERARY AWARD NOMINATIONS

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - PEN Center USA West has bestowed a double honor upon the University of Arkansas. A graduate of the UA creative writing program and a professor of history both have received nominations for the 1999 PEN literary awards competition.

"It’s a huge thrill to be nominated for this award," said Gordon Grice, a 1993 graduate of the MFA program in creative writing. "This is one of the biggest things that’s ever happened to me."

Grice’s book, "The Red Hourglass: Lives of the Predators," and "The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado" by Dr. Elliott West of the UA history department represent two of five books nominated for best research-based nonfiction.

PEN Center USA West established its literary awards competition in 1982 to honor outstanding works published or produced in the western United States. Award categories include fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, children’s literature, journalism, screenplay, teleplay and drama.

Winners in each category will be announced in late May, and each will be presented with a $1,000 cash prize during an awards banquet in Los Angeles on October 28, 1999.

Besides Grice and West, other nominees for the category of research-based nonfiction are Patricia Cline Cohen for "The Murder of Helen Jewett," "King Leopold’s Ghost" by Adam Hochschild and Leon Litwack’s "Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow."

"I’m very pleased to be in with such good company, especially Gordon Grice," said West. "There are not many authors who can write beautifully about a praying mantis. But he can."

In fact, Grice writes about the predatory habits of several creatures - from black widow spiders to rattlesnakes and pigs - with a rich, concentrated language and an attention to detail

that stems from his studies in poetry at the University of Arkansas.

Grice, who now lives in Guymon, Okla. and teaches at Seward County Community College, says the UA program fully prepared him for his roles both as an essayist and as an educator.

"As the years go by, I’ve come to value the UA program more and more. It was one of the best things I ever did for my writing," he said. "Plus, for someone like me who loves teaching, the training I received in literature and genre at the U of A has become a tremendous benefit."

As a student, Grice not only honed his skills as a poet but also developed an interest in nonfiction. "The Red Hourglass" evolved out of an essay, written for one of his creative writing courses, he said, where detail and vivid description were emphasized as vital elements of nonfiction.

Indeed, Grice’s book does not flinch from even the most gruesome details of predation. The descriptive essays draw on his childhood curiosities as well as adult experiences.

"Personal observation and experience are part of my approach to writing as a whole," he said. "I like to delve into the details and give my reader the feeling of being there and having their own hands in it."

While Grice enlivens his nonfiction with personal experience, West’s book relies on the experiences of others.

"The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado" has won several awards, including best western nonfiction from the Western Writers of America and the prestigious Ray Allen Billington Prize from the Organization of American Historians. It has been heralded nationwide as the premier historical account of the American Great Plains.

In his book, West relates the history of the Great Plains in a narrative that weaves together two stories - that of the people and that of the land - following how the nature of each intertwined to shape American landscape and culture.

The appeal of West’s book is not just that he records the lives of historic people, describing past events and experiences. Rather, he draws his readers into history, relating it to their own experiences as human beings.

"The most important institution in any society is the family. It’s a great way of getting inside history," West said. "Everyone has a family and understands how they operate. Everyone knows families are very emotional places, and so it’s a way to get people emotionally involved in a story."

The success of Grice’s book is also due in part to this technique - writing about topics that appeal to a wide audience. Though descriptions of animal attacks and insect reproduction may seem repellent at first, they actually make for a captivating read.

"The grotesque and the startling are things that serious writers and scholars look down on," Grice admitted. "It’s not that these things are out of style right now but that they’re out of respect. Even though academics dismiss them, I think they maintain a universal appeal. Everyone is fascinated by the gruesome details of life and death."

Though their topics hold universal appeal, the genre of nonfiction has not always reached such a wide audience. But West believes that many readers could find equal enjoyment from nonfiction as from their summer-time novels.

"Nonfiction has all sorts of roles," he said. "One is the same as good fiction - to jog our curiosity and to help us see remarkable things in what we thought was the ordinary world around us. That’s what Grice does, and it’s what I try to do too."

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