Category | Arts & Living

MAPW student and Southern Gothic author receives award for first novel

Published on July 21, 2009 by Heather Cook

Kennesaw State University held the 45th Annual Georgia Author of the Year awards ceremony and banquet on June 13. This year, Master of Arts in Professional Writing (MAPW) student Raymond Atkins received the award for his first novel, “The Front Porch Prophet.”

Photo courtesy of Raymond Atkins.

English professor Robert Barrier said the Georgia Author of the Year Award is “not only to honor good writing, but also to encourage new writers.”

Atkins said that the inspiration for “The Front Porch Prophet” came from writing about what is familiar to him.

“There is a lot of truth in the old saying that a writer should stick to writing what he or she knows. In my case, what I know best is growing up in the rural South. I have never climbed Mount Everest or gone to the moon, but I have been raised in a unique culture, one that is disappearing as each year passes,” Atkins said. “For me, at least, writing is not so much a decision as it is a compulsion. I have always written and always been drawn to the writing life. It is an activity that I must do in order to feel complete. I think this may be true for many writers. Those who write do so because they must.”

Another professor of English, Greg Johnson, described Atkins’ writing style as “a Southern Gothic/comic style that skillfully avoids the occasional excesses of sentimentality and sensationalism one occasionally finds in that genre.”

Professor of Creative Writing Tony Grooms had similar comments about Atkins’ writing style: “Atkins is a humorist, drawing on a long tradition of regional humorists and local-color writers-but the themes that he tackles are not typical of the local-color writers. His focus, for example, on spirituality and the serious treatment of social issues broadens his appeal beyond the scope of regionalist writing.”

Although Laura Dabundo, professor of English, has never taught Atkins, every Christmas she reads his story “Nativity Scenes” from the “Christmas Stories from Georgia” collection aloud to whichever group has asked her to read her story,  “The Blue- and Brown-Eyed Santa Claus” from the same book.

“In truth, I think his story is wiser, better and funnier than mine and than many other stories. I heartily recommend it; it makes me laugh out loud every year, even though I am familiar with it,” Dabundo said of Atkins’ work in the collection.

The MAPW program is unique in that it emphasizes a close study of many types of writing. This approach broadens the students’ writing abilities and enhances their overall writing skills.

More specifically, as Barrier said, “It introduces students to different and advanced aspects of workplace writing so that they can do their work better and more efficiently and potentially find new avenues and jobs for applied writing. It works with teachers and others interested in rhetoric to introduce them to ways of reading and writing that will benefit them in all areas of their lives. It is unique in that there are very few programs that allow students to study all three strands of the program-creative, applied and composition and rhetoric-in a curriculum that appeals to individual interests and abilities.”

Atkins, who also earned a bachelor’s degree in behavioral sciences from KSU, said, “One of the main benefits for me in being enrolled in the MAPW program is the opportunity to surround myself with gifted, creative people. My experience with the faculty and staff associated with the program is that they are world-class practitioners of the art of writing, and they are willing to share their knowledge. My fellow students, as well, are an impressive group, and immersion into this culture of writing has been of great benefit.”

For those interested in careers in writing, Atkins has two pieces of advice: “The first is fairly intuitive: a writer must write. A writer must sit down every day and put words on paper. If the great words won’t come, write the mediocre ones and fix them later-but write.”

Secondly, Atkins said to share:  “It is very hard to remain creative in a vacuum. A writer must be surrounded by and share with creative people.”

Atkins’ second novel, “Sorrow Wood,” and the award-winner, “The Front Porch Prophet,” are both available at your local bookstore and online at amazon.com. His next book signing will be on Aug. 1 at the Barnes and Noble at Riverbend Center in Rome, Ga. To learn more about Atkins and his works, visit raymondlatkins.com.