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Aaron Baker wins Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers

Aaron Baker of Charlottesville, Va., has been named recipient of the 2009 Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers, awarded annually by Shenandoah and Washington and Lee University, for his book Mission Work from Houghton Mifflin (2008). The book was also winner of the 2007 Bakeless Poetry Prize. Baker received the MFA from the University of Virginia and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing at Stanford University. He has lived in Mexico, Germany and Papua, New Guinea, where his parents were missionaries in a remote village of the Chimbu Highlands. His poems have appeared in Poetry, New England Review, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. Baker lives in Charlottesville and teaches in the creative writing program at Hollins University. Writers who have published one book of poetry were eligible for consideration for the $2,500 prize. Judge for the 2009 Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize was Alice Friman, who says that Baker’s book touches “the essential mystery that underlies all things.”

The 2010 Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers of $2,000 will go to a writer who has published only one book of poetry. The judge will be announced after the winner has been selected. Submissions should be sent to R. T. Smith, c/o The Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers, Shenandoah, Mattingly House, 2 Lee Avenue, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA 24450-2116 and must be postmarked between March 15 and March 31, 2010 All contestants should include a vita, one copy of the submitted book, up to five unpublished poems not under submission elsewhere, a SASE and a submission fee of $25, (either from the author or publisher), which also brings a year’s subscription to Shenandoah. Books submitted for consideration will not be returned and will be donated to the Washington and Lee University library after the contest has been judged.

See www.shenandoah.wlu.edu for more information about Shenandoah or The Shenandoah/ Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers.