Charleston native Rita Mae Reese is one of six winners of the 2006
Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards, given annually to promising
female writers in the early stages of their careers.
Now in its 12th year,
the Jaffe awards have helped women build successful writing careers by
offering encouragement and $15,000 in cash.
The 38-year-old
Dunbar High School graduate attended West Virginia State University
for two years, dropped out, and worked at two local Waldenbooks stores
before moving to Tallahassee, Fla. There she graduated from Florida
State University, and later earned a master of fine arts degree in
poetry from University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In Tallahassee, she
worked for seven years for a small publisher of feminist lesbian
books. “It was mostly fiction: mysteries, even some Westerns,” she
said.
Reese is working on a
novel tentatively titled “Local Usage,” set in 1960s West Virginia,
where a young, female graduate student has come to do research for the
Dictionary of American Regional English. “That is a real dictionary
based in Madison,” she said. “I worked there.”
Reese lives in San
Francisco, where she has begun the second and final year as a Stegner
Fellow in fiction at Stanford University in nearby Palo Alto.
Reese also is
completing her first poetry collection, “A History of Accidents,” and
working on her next poetry project, a documentary/biography of
Flannery O’Connor. Reese plans to use her latest award to devote her
full attention to the novel and poetry projects.
Reese is the daughter
of Maxine Reese, who worked at Classic Shoe Store in Dunbar for 20
years and now lives in Tallahassee.
Following a phone
interview in which she answered in short phrases, Reese wrote an
e-mail. “I’m afraid I wasn’t very articulate. I think that is one of
the reasons I write — you know the Anne Frank quote, ‘Paper is
patient.’ When you asked what my ambitions are, I should have answered
‘to write,’ which is the truth in a nutshell. And also I’d like to
earn the respect of people I admire. The Rona Jaffe award is wonderful
not just for the financial support, but because it is a measure of
respect and encouragement from other writers. That’s invaluable.”
In her spare time,
she likes walking and hiking. Among her talents, she can juggle three
balls at a time. “I find it oddly relaxing,” she explained by e-mail.
“I’ll do it when I’m anxious or sometimes just to quiet my mind when
I’m trying to write.”
Novelist Rona Jaffe
(1931-2005) established The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards
program in 1995. It is the only national literary awards program
dedicated to supporting female writers exclusively.
To contact staff
writer Bob Schwarz, use e-mail or call 348-1249. |