New Orleans-based author Maurice Carlos Ruffin to receive Annual Corrington Award for Literary Excellence at Centenary College
SHREVEPORT, LA — Author Maurice Carlos Ruffin will receive the 2024 John William Corrington Award for Literary Excellence, presented annually by the Centenary College English Department, in a ceremony on Monday, October 28. The 2024 Corrington Award celebration begins at 6:30 p.m. in Centenary’s Marjorie Lyons Playhouse. Ruffin will give a reading during the event, which is free and open to the public. A live stream of the Corrington Award ceremony will also be available on Centenary’s Facebook page at facebook.com/CentenaryCollegeLa.
Ruffin is the author of the 2024 historical novel The American Daughters. His previous works include the short story collection The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You and the novel We Cast a Shadow. Ruffin is the winner of several literary prizes, including the 2023 Louisiana Writer Award, the Black Rock Senegal Residency, and the Iowa Review Award in fiction, and has been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the DUBLIN Literary Award, and the Daytona Literary Peace Prize. A New Orleans native, Ruffin is a professor of creative writing at Louisiana State University.
“The Corrington Award is an annual opportunity for the campus and community to come together in celebration of literature and the arts,” said Dr. Chrissy Martin, assistant professor of English and a member of the Corrington Award selection committee. “Ruffin’s short story collection The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You begins with a quote by Ellis Marsalis: ‘In New Orleans, culture doesn't come down from on high, it bubbles up from the street.’ We invite the community to use these stories as an opportunity to reflect on their own relationships to the places they occupy and the connections made in these spaces. What culture bubbles up in our communities, our homes, in the places we love? How do each of us see Shreveport and Centenary in a way that is unique to us?”
The Corrington Award ceremony will showcase the artistic talents of Centenary students alongside Ruffin’s literary accomplishments. Attendees will hear poetry from last year's creative writing contest winner, Kay Christopher, and watch a theatrical performance of Ruffin's work created by students Emma Greer and Channing Hall. The event programs and accompanying art will incorporate designs created by student Aubrey Salazar. After Ruffin's reading, there will be a Q&A with the audience followed by a reception and book signing. Attendees are encouraged to join the celebration of literature and the arts by “dressing their best” in looks worthy of the red carpet.
First-year students in Centenary’s Trek 115: Credo classes will be reading from Ruffin's collection of short stories, The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You, providing many opportunities for students to analyze Ruffin’s use of “place” as well as examine their own writerly voices. In addition to an emphasis on writing, Trek 115 courses highlight civic and community engagement. Dr. Bellee Jones-Pierce, assistant professor of English and director of the first-year program at Centenary, believes that Ruffin’s story collection allows students to engage with both of these objectives in a particularly meaningful way.
“Students will continue working with Ruffin’s stories well beyond the Corrington Award Ceremony,” said Jones-Pierce. “Several stories offer important perspectives on identity and the ways we define ourselves and others, including ‘Bigsby’ and ‘Token.’ These stories and others encourage students to think about precision in language and how their beliefs are formed using definitions and categorizations they’ve inherited from others. Ruffin's characters come alive, in part, because he pays such close attention to voice. Voice will be especially important as we think through literacy and ask our students to write literacy narratives that reflect upon and highlight their relationships to reading, writing, and speaking.”
In addition to Trek 115’s engagement with The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, several other Centenary groups are sponsoring common reads of Ruffin’s work this fall. The newly-formed Corrington Book Club, made up of students, faculty, and staff, is reading his debut novel, We Cast a Shadow, while the Fiction Club is reading Ruffin’s newest novel, The American Daughters. The annual community study series sponsored by the Centenary Muses is also reading Ruffin’s work this fall.
"I admire Ruffin because he trusts readers enough to challenge them,” said Dr. Rachel Johnson, director of Centenary’s Center for Teaching and Learning. “A through-line across Ruffin's work is that he draws attention to the world as it is and as it could be, for better or worse. What currents run just below the surface of our most ordinary, mundane interactions? What awaits us if we meander blindly down well-cut paths, too busy (or lazy) to imagine alternatives? We Cast a Shadow is set in a near-future city in the American South (not too different from Shreveport, LA). I look forward to the conversations we'll have about the book, ourselves, and our futures."
The Centenary English Department sponsors two writing contests, inaugurated in 2023, for students in conjunction with the Corrington Award. The Corrington Excellence in Freshman Writing Essay Contest, sponsored by the Attaway Professorships in Civic Culture Program, the Centenary Learning Commons and the First-Year Program, invites essays from first-year students inspired by Ruffin’s work and engaging with the idea of place. The Corrington Creative Writing Award, open to all Centenary students, focuses on poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or hybrid work inspired by themes found in Ruffin’s writing and engaging with ideas of place, character, and/or voice. The Corrington Creative Writing Award is presented by the Attaway Professorships in Civic Culture Program.
Debuting this year is the Corrington Photo Contest presented by the Centenary Learning Commons. Open to all students, the Corrington Photo Contest invites photography submissions that capture places and communities that hold significance for Centenary students. Submissions must include a brief caption explaining how the photograph engages with the idea of place and community. The contests feature cash prizes totaling $1,650 as well as opportunities for publication. Winning writing will be published in the campus newspaper, The Conglomerate, and the campus literary magazine, Pandora, and the winning photos will be printed and displayed at the Corrington Award ceremony.
The John William Corrington Award for Literary Excellence is presented annually by the Department of English at Centenary on behalf of the Centenary student body and faculty to an established, critically-acknowledged writer. The award honors a Centenary alumnus and English major, Bill Corrington (1932-1988), who was variously an English professor, an attorney in private practice, and, with his wife, Joyce, the head writer for several television series, including Search for Tomorrow and General Hospital. A prolific poet, he also published four novels, two short novels, and three collections of short stories.
In 1991 Eudora Welty became the first recipient of the Corrington Award when she read her short story "A Worn Path" at Centenary's spring Commencement. The Award takes the form of a bronze medal designed by the internationally-exhibited Louisiana sculptor Clyde Connell. The medal depicts two primitive figures, one of them slightly in front of the other, carrying a long object. A presentation box, hand-made by a local craftsperson, accompanies the medal. For more information on the Corrington Award and a full list of past winners, visit centenary.edu/corrington.
The annual Corrington Award and the student writing contests are generously underwritten by the Attaway Professorships in Civic Culture Program, the Centenary Learning Commons, and the Centenary First-Year Program. More information about the 2024 Corrington Award is available at centenary.edu/corrington.