MACON, Ga. — Mercer University English Professor Dr. Gordon Johnston has been named a finalist for the prestigious Townsend Prize for Fiction for his short story collection Seven Islands of the Ocmulgee. Awarded every two years by The Atlanta Writers Club and Georgia Writers Museum, the Townsend Prize is the highest Georgia award for literary fiction given to a Georgia author.
“Having Seven Islands of the Ocmulgee alongside the other impressive books of fiction in the finals is a real affirmation of my writing,” said Dr. Johnston.
Seven Islands of the Ocmulgee was published in 2023 by Mercer University Press and Georgia Humanities. The collection of seven short stories was inspired by Dr. Johnston’s kayak and canoe journeys along the Ocmulgee and its tributaries.
“Gordon Johnston’s Seven Islands of the Ocmulgee is a wonderful collection set along the Ocmulgee River,” said Director of Mercer University Press Marc Jolley. “His writing flows like the river itself and gives the stories relevance and significance. The reader is rewarded on every page.”
Dr. Johnston says the stories share a common theme of restoration, and the characters seek out the river and find themselves changed by it in some way.
“I’m happy for Rea, Tobit, Merlinda and the other characters in the river stories,” said Dr.Johnston. “Just being a finalist for this prize won by my teachers and friends Jim Kilgo and Judson Mitcham and by writers whose work I teach, like Mary Hood, Pam Durban and Sanjena Sathian feels like a win.”
Dr. Johnston is also the author of poetry collection Scaring the Bears and poetry chapbooks Durable Goods and Gravity’s Light Grip. His sixth book, a full-length poetry collection titled Where Here is Hard to Say also contains themes inspired by his river journeys.
The gala event announcing the winner will be held at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center in Atlanta in mid-April.
About the Townsend Prize for Fiction
The Townsend Prize for Fiction was started in 1981 to honor the legacy of Jim Townsend, founding editor of Atlanta magazine—the model of the modern city magazine—and mentor to a generation of iconic Southern writers like Pat Conroy, Terry Kay, and Anne Rivers Siddons. Administered since the 1990s by Georgia Perimeter College (now Georgia State University Perimeter College) and The Chattahoochee Review., the stewardship of the Prize passed in 2021 to the Atlanta Writers Club (AWC). In the spring of 2023, Georgia Writers Museum joined the AWC as a partner in the Prize administration.
