Pinckney's a Great Man...and Judge!

from my esteemed colleague Pinckney Benedict:

"For the blog, whenever it’s convenient: For what it’s worth, just wanted to tell you that I served as judge, along with Amy Hempel and Lynn Freed, for the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Awards this year. This was a particular pleasure because I won the Algren way back in 1986.

The description of the awards is as follows:

“The Nelson Algren awards are for short fiction. Submissions must be written by an American and must be unpublished. One $5,000 prize and three runner-up prizes of $1,500 are awarded. The award is given in memory of Chicago author Nelson Algren.”

It looks as though they’ll begin accepting submissions for next year’s awards beginning November 1. Everybody in the program who has a story should enter."

To find the guidelines, visit the Chicago Tribune's web site at http://www.chicagotribune.com/
and put "Algren Awards" in the search box.