Doris Betts Fiction Prize

2005 Competition Winner

First Prize - Susan Gladin, for "Metamorphosis"

Susan Gladin of Hillsborough is the winner of the 2005 Doris Betts Fiction Prize for her short story, "Metamorphosis," selected from thirty-seven entries by the final judge, novelist Rosa Shand of Spartanburg, SC. The winning story will receive an award of $150, and will be considered for publication by the Raleigh News and Observer. Gladin is a United Methodist minister who is also a writer, business owner, and farmer in Hillsborough. She came to North Carolina in 1978 to study at Duke Divinity School and served as Executive Director of Orange Congregations in Mission until 1991. She currently owns and manages Farmstead Health Supply which sells herbal products and diagnostic equipment for livestock. She has been a columnist with the Chapel Hill Herald since 1998, and has published fiction in The News and Observer and Encore Magazine. She was the 2004 winner of the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society fiction contest. She is also a First Responder with the Caldwell Fire Department. Shand, whose 2000 novel The Gravity of Sunlight was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, was for many years the Larrabee Professor of English at Converse College and is currently Visiting Writer at Wofford College. She said, of Gladin's work, "The story catches, in vivid image and gesture, a subtle and difficult rite of passage: a daughter's coming of age, a father's emotional involvement, a mother's jealousy."

Second Prize - Rhonda Strickland, for "Take Me With You"

Rhonda Strickland of Raleigh wins second prize for her story Take Me With You. Strickland will receive $100 for her story and also will be considered for publication in the Raleigh News and Observer.