Allison and
Grimsley awarded LGBT novelists prize

Dorothy Allison and Jim Grimsley will be the first recipients of the newly established Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists Prize at the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans next month.

The prize includes a $5,000 grant to each author courtesy of Jim Duggins, a retired San Francisco State University professor, in recognition of LGBT midcareer novelists. Duggins has vowed to fund the prizes during his lifetime through an endowment at the Horizons Foundation of San Francisco, according to a press release.

Grimsley is the author of several novels, including Forgiveness and Boulevard, and wrote a collection of plays in the book Mr. Universe: And Other Plays.

Allison penned Bastard Out of Carolina, a National Book Award-nominated novel, the intimate short story collection Trash, as well as other novels and nonfiction titles.

Allison and Grimsley will both offer masters classes and make appearances at the Saints and Sinners Festival. (The Advocate)