At the annual awards banquet for UNO’s Creative Writing Workshop, Peauxdunquian Maurice Carlos Ruffin was presented with the Joanna Leake Prize for Fiction Thesis, awarded to the best fiction collection by a graduating MFA student, for his collection, It’s Good to See You’re Awake. In addition, great friend of Peauxdunque Che Yeun received the Ernest Svenson Fiction Award for her fantastic story, “Yuna.”

Che Yeun, winner of the 2013 Svenson Award for Fiction; and Maurice Ruffin, winner of the 2013 Joanna Leake Award for Fiction Thesis.

This weekend also held the third in the month-long series of Sunday Shorts short story readings at the Red Star Galerie at 2513 Bayou Road, featuring readings by members of the MelaNated Writers Collective and Peauxdunque. Terri Shrum Stoor and Jeri Hilt both read captivating stories to a standing-room-only audience. The last in the series is this Sunday, May 19, at 8 p.m., featuring readings by MelaNated’s Danielle Gilyot and Peauxdunque’s Tad Bartlett.

Terri Shrum Stoor reading at Sunday Shorts, May 12, 2013. Photo by Wayne Edelen.