Alyson Hagy Wins High Plains Best Fiction Award

Just a few weeks ago I was writing here about my friend Alyson Hagy, and her win of The Devil's Kitchen Award.  Today I write to say that this extraordinarily talented writer and honest, good, and soulful friend just won Best Fiction prize at the High Plains Book Awards, an event held at Parmly Billings Library this past Saturday.  The book is Ghosts of Wyoming (Graywolf Press), a collection of short stories that deserves every last bit of praise it gets. 

But so does Alyson, as a person, deserve that praise.  She sends the most gorgeous and considered emails from her post in Laramie, Wyoming (where she helps run one of the greatest creative writing programs anywhere)—talks about books she's liked or tussled with, her early morning spottings of birds, the six inches of October snow.  She'll tell me she's headed out of town for a little tennis, and only later and by accident will I discover that she's playing tournament tennis, and winning to boot.  She'll say, ahead of a trip to what she calls a book festival, "I love the folks at Billings who work so darn hard on behalf of the arts," without mentioning that her own book is up for a Billings award.

This is not false modesty at work.  It's Alyson Hagy—whose quality of mind and richness of perspective have kept me necessary company through the years.

And so, dear Alyson, this tribute is again for you.  Not just for what you've won.  But for who you are.