Poet wins prestigious TU Prize for Literature
Germantown man’s book honored for literary, aesthetic excellence
TOWSON, Md. (April 4, 2008)—Kurt S. Olsson, of Germantown, Md., is the winner of the 2008 Towson University Prize for Literature. He received the $1,000 prize for his book of poems, What Kills What Kills Us, published in 2007 by Silverfish Review Press.
Olsson earned a B.A. in English from Colby College and an M.F.A. in creative writing from George Mason University. He currently works for an international development consulting firm in Bethesda, Md.
His poems have appeared in Poetry, Field, Antioch Review, Poetry East, Quarterly West, Alaska Quarterly Review and Threepenny Review, among others.
What Kills What Kills Us, his first full-length book, won the 2005 Gerald Cable Book Award. He has published two chapbooks: I Know Your Heart, Hieronymus Bosch, winner of the Portlandia Group's annual chapbook contest in 2000, and Autobiography of My Hand (Bright Hill Press, 2006.)
Established in 1979 with a grant from Alice and Franklin Cooley, the Towson University Prize for Literature is awarded annually for a single book or book-length manuscript of fiction, poetry, drama or imaginative nonfiction by a Maryland writer. The prize is granted on the basis of literary and aesthetic excellence as determined by a panel of distinguished judges appointed by the university.
Olsson will read from his work at Towson University in the fall.
|
