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 NORTH CAROLINA—Poet, novelist, and former Davidson College professor Anthony S. Abbott won top honors in the 2012 Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition for his essay “The White Dress.”
Author Anne Clinard Barnhill, the judge of this year’s contest, praised Abbott’s essay for “the carefulness of the language used in this piece, the reverence for the subject—a visit to Emily Dickinson’s house—and the poetic descriptions.
“The writer’s passion for this event was palpable.”
A native of San Francisco, Anthony S. Abbott is Professor Emeritus of English at Davidson College. His first novel, Leaving Maggie Hope, was published in 2003 and received the Novello Literary Award and ForeWord Magazine’s Gold Award for literary fiction. He is the author of six books of poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat. His most recent book, If Words Could Save Us, was published in 2011 by Lorimer Press.
Hillsborough writer Terri Sherrill, a marketing director for GlaxoSmithKline, won second place for her essay “For the Love of Loggerheads,” of which Barnhill said, “the description of the narrator's observations of the turtles hatching and making their mad dash to the sea was exciting . . . the writer's excitement is transferred to the reader.”
Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin of Cullowhee won third place for her essay “White Lobelia: An Open Letter to My Neighbor.”
“The writing is lovely while describing the Appalachian land on which the writer walks and lives, the variety of flowers, the bees,” Barnhill said.
 Anne Clinard Barnhill is the author of the new novel At the Mercy of the Queen, as well as the 2007 memoir At Home in the Land of Oz: Autism, My Sister, and Me, a short story collection, and a forthcoming chapbook of poetry.
Sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network and administered by the creative writing department at UNC-Wilmington, the Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition encourages the creation of lasting nonfiction work that is outside the realm of conventional journalism. The contest is open to any legal resident of North Carolina or member of NCWN. First-, second-, and third-place winners receive $300, $200, and $100, respectively, and the winning entry is considered for publication in the magazine Southern Cultures.
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