Books: Corriher wins prizes in fiction contests

Local novelist Dr. Kurt Corriher, professor of German, acting, dramatic literature and film criticism at Catawba College, won third prize in the Writers' Workshop of Asheville's annual Meet the Writers fiction contest.

His entry was the first two chapters of a novel manuscript titled "Salvation."

Corriher was also one of nine finalists for the Thomas Wolfe fiction prize, sponsored by the North Carolina Writers Network, with his work selected from more than 130 entries. His entry was a short story titled "The Caretaker."

A native of Rowan County, Corriher also is program coordinator for Catawba's Lilly Center for Vocation and Values and director of the Catawba College community Forum. A former Fulbright Fellow to Vienna, Austria, Corriher earned his undergraduate degree in German and history from Davidson College, his master of fine arts degree in drama and his Ph.D. in German from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He taught German at Mercer University and Catawba College, served as the director of education programs at The Sequoia Institute in Sacramento, Calif., and as director of computer services at Catawba. Additionally, he was employed as a technical writer and hardware services supervisor by Food Lion, Inc. and has worked as a business software consultant and developer.

Outside of his varied jobs, Corriher has worked as a contract writer for various area businesses and agencies. He has written a novel, "Someone to Kill," published in 2002. It was featured in the 2006 Summer Reading Challenge and Corriher appeared on the final panel to discuss his work.

N.C. Writers' Network

Registration is open for the North Carolina Writers' Network's 2009 Squire Summer Writing Residency.

This year's residency will be Friday-Sunday, July 24-26, at Warren Wilson College, outside Asheville,.

The residency is open only to the first 50 registrants, who can choose one of the following workshops: Poetry with Cathy Smith Bowers, Fiction with Tommy Hays, or Creative Nonfiction with Catherine Reid.

Bowers' work has appeared in publications such as the Atlantic Monthly and the Kenyon Review. She served for many years as poet-in-residence at Queens University of Charlotte, where she received the 2002 J.B. Fuqua Distinguished Educator Award. She now teaches in the Queens low-residency MFA in Creative Writing Program and at conferences throughout the United States. Bowers is the author of three collections of poetry.

Hays' latest novel, "The Pleasure Was Mine," was chosen for the One City, One Book program in Greensboro and for the Amazing Read, Greenville, S.C.'s first community read. Read on NPR's "Radio Reader," it was a finalist for the SIBA 2006 Fiction Award. He is executive director of the Great Smokies Writing Program and lecturer in the master of liberal arts program at UNC-Asheville.

Reid is an award-winning essayist and author of "Coyote: Seeking the Hunter in Our Midst," one of Bookloft's top 20 bestsellers for 2006. She teaches at Warren Wilson College, where she specializes in creative nonfiction.

The residency offers an intensive course in a chosen genre, as well as a panel discussion on publishing and bookselling and readings by faculty and registrants.

More information about the Squire Summer Writing Residency can be found at www.ncwriters.org, or by calling 336-293-8844.