17 Apr 2012, Posted by Vicki Lawrence, MQR Managing Editor in Features, 0 Comments Tagged 2011, Laurence Goldstein Poetry Prize, Lawrence Foundation Prize, Page Clayton Prize, Prizes

MQR Announces 2011 Literary Prizes

Michigan Quarterly Review is pleased to announce that it has awarded this year’s trio of literary prizes to the authors of an amusing—and poignant—story about strangers in the strange land of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, an elegant poem on perspectives during a balloon flight, and a gritty poem listing the detritus of life at a Detroit high school.

25 Mar 2011, Posted by Vicki Lawrence, MQR Managing Editor in Blog, 1 Comments Tagged 2010, Albert Goldbarth, Eric Lee, Laurence Goldstein Prize, Lawrence Foundation Prize, Literary Awards, Page Davidson Clayton Prize, Shimon Tanaka

MQR Announces 2010 Literary Prizes

by Vicki Lawrence

A taut, tension-filled story of a man helping the woman he loves flee her abusive husband, a poem whose technical expertise and emotional surefootedness exemplify the mature work of a poet writing at the height of his powers, and a couple of lively poems exuding the energy and sensibility of a new generation have won the trio of literary prizes awarded each year by Michigan Quarterly Review.

23 Nov 2010, Posted by Vicki Lawrence, MQR Managing Editor in Blog, 0 Comments Tagged Fiction, Jaimy Gordon, National Book Awards, Patti Smith

MQR author Jaimy Gordon wins National Book Award

by Vicki Lawrence

Jaimy Gordon, who to her surprise just won the National Book Award for her novel Lord of Misrule, called me up the week before the award ceremony, when she was still just a nominee. She’s published a couple pieces in MQR, so I was happy to hear from her—and pleased to discover the reason for her call. It seems that Lord of Misrule began life—like most fiction, I think—as a bunch of characters in her head years before any of it got written down. Her first attempt to get those characters onto paper, and to wrestle with their lives and their relationships and their time and place, formed itself into a short story called “A Night’s Work,” which we published in MQR back in 1994 (and which was selected for Best American Short Stories 1995).