The ALSCW is pleased to announce that Carolyn Jack is the winner of the 2016 Meringoff Prize in fiction. Ms. Jack’s “Success” is part of a novel in progress. The judges (John Burt and Lee Oser) call it “a brilliant portrait of a talented, observant, tart-tongued, young pianist from a Caribbean island whose cultivated, nearly deaf mother has determined that he will be a prodigy, and who is just at the point of leaving home to pursue study in the United States.” The award includes a cash prize of $2,000 and publication in an upcoming issue of Literary Matters. Ms. Jack and the other Meringoff Prize winners have been invited to read at the 2017 annual conference of the ALSCW at the University of Dallas from October 26-29. For more information go to our website (ALSCW.org).
Carolyn Jack enjoyed a career as an arts journalist, media entrepreneur and communications consultant before earning her MFA in fiction from Columbia University School of the Arts in 2016. In addition to the 2006 Mensa Press Award for Writing on Human Intelligence, as well as first-place criticism and reporting prizes from the Florida and Cleveland (Ohio) press clubs and the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists, Jack has received a Pushcart Prize nomination from Great Lakes Review and won The Westchester Review’s 2016 Short Fiction Contest. Her other creative work includes the lyrics and vocals for Ohio indie band Karmic Dogma’s 2008 album, “Insomniacs in the Bed of Faith”; a short film, “Wall of Fame,” that opened the 2009 Ohio Independent Film Festival; stage works including “The Moon Plays,” produced at Florida Repertory Theatre, and “Critical Moments” and “Kronos,” presented in workshop productions at Cleveland Public Theatre; and a decade of performances and recordings with the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, including the Grammy-winning “Symphonie Fantastique / Tristia,” with the Cleveland Orchestra under the baton of Pierre Boulez.