Matt Clark Awards:
All submission are considered for the Matt Clark Awards in Fiction and Poetry. The Matt Clark Poetry and Fiction Awards acknowledge achievement in two areas of undergraduate creative writing at LSU. They were named in memory of Daniel Matt Clark, beloved teacher, former faculty advisor of delta, and coordinator of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University who died of colon cancer at the age of 31. Matt grew up in Decatur, Texas, graduated from Southern Methodist University and came to LSU for graduate school. His stories were published in quarterlies around the country, including Alaskan Quarterly Review and Gulf Coast. He was selected as a finalist, twice, in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition in New Orleans. Fascinated by tall tales and urban legends, Matt was in the process of inventing a very new kind of southwest magical realism, part Mark Twain, part Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His most successful story was “The West Texas Sprouting of Loman Happenstance7whicj, was optioned for film. Also, Matt’s first novel, Hook Man Speaks, was published by Avon Books in Matt had a remarkable effect upon the students and other writers whose lives he touched. He single-handedly reorganized and directed the Creative Writing Program at LSU for more than two years, encouraging students to keep at it, to take their work seriously, and to take it to the next level. We were all blessed by his vitality, his brio, his humor, his intensity, his fascination with life, his art, and his belief in art. |