The Agriculture Hall of Fame: Stories

Prize, Back Cover

This volume is the seventh recipient of the Juniper Prize for Fiction, established in 2004 by the University of Massachusetrs Press in collaboration with the UMass Amherst MFA Program for Poets and Writers, to be presented annually for an outstanding work of literary fiction. Like its sister award, the Juniper Prize for Poetry established in 1976, the prize is named in honor ofRobert Francis (1901-1987), who lived for many years at FortJuniper, Amherst, Massachusetrs. "This page intentionally left blank" "This page intentionally left blank" WINNER OF THE JUNIPER PRIZE FOR FICTION , These powerful stories limn the complexities and dilemmas oflife in Kansas. a state at "the center of the center of America," as a billboard in one story an nounces. Andrew Malan Milward explores the less visible aspects ofdle Kansas experience--where its agrarian past comes into conflict with the harsh present reality ofdrugs, fundamentalism, and corporatism, relegating its agrarian identity ro museu ms and amusement parks. Presented in a triptych, dle srories in Milward's debut collection range across a varied rerrain, from tumbledown rural barns ro modern urban hospitals, revealing dle secrets contained therein. "Andrew Malan Milward is an exceptionally gifted and mature storyteller, attentive to the intricacies ofcharacter and place. Tbere's no showing offhere, no macho postu ring, no coy evasion, no attention-demanding voice or ploy. This debut collection is wise, patient, vivid, and deep. One gets the impression that dJese srories were written slowly and with great care. Further, one gets the refreshing impression that the aurhor sincerely needed to write them."-CH RIS BACI'IELDER, contest judge and author ofAbbott Awaits:ANouel "Two sons struggle ro understand their Vietnam Vet father. A mother rejecrs her meth-addicted son. A farmer's life becomes tied-fatally-ro bis barn. A brodler and sisterspeakwidl heartbreaking humor about everything but the cancer killing her. These beautiful stories, ranging the cities and rowns of Kansas from Ulysses ro EIDorado, are as intimate and compassionate as they are unfl inching. Andrew Malan Milward has made of dle Sunflower State a doorway into the American soul."-NAEEM MuR.R, author ofrhe Perfect Man COlltrdtsi.gn bYJack Harrison AN DREW MALAN MI LWARD isa graduate ofthe Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has se.rved as a McCreight Fiction Fellow at the University ofWisconsin, a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University, a Writing Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, altd a R,e ideltt Artist at the Santa Fe Art Instimte. His fiction has appeared in many places, including Zomope, The Southern Reuiew. Columbia. Conjunctions, and BI!St New Ameriran Voires 2010. He lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he is a Visiting Writer at the University ofSouthern Mississippi. ColltT pholo,graph @Arl!namarivt IDrtamstimt.com UN rVERSITY OF MASSAC HU SETTS PRESS Amherst & Boston www.umass.edu/umpress ...