The S.C. Arts Commission and its literary partners have named Brian Ray of Columbia, S.C., the winner of the inaugural South Carolina First Novel Prize. Ray is receiving the opportunity to have his novel, Girl With Her Throat Cut, published by the Hub City Writers Project. "The voice is confident and engaging," said Percival Everett, distinguished novelist and the final judge of the competition. "I found myself not only wanting to go where the narrator was taking me, but also wanting merely to hear her speaking."

Ray is an English instructor at the University of South Carolina and USC Honors College. His novel is about a young artist who works at her dad's steel mill for one summer following the unexpected death of her mother, all while stumbling through her first romance with a muralist who paints the mill at night. He began the manuscript while earning his master's degree in creative writing at USC.

"I'm grateful to win the First Novel Prize -- especially because this was the first time it was offered," said Ray. "I've been working on the novel for a few years now, and this is giving me the opportunity to really complete it."

The Hub City Writers Project will publish at least 1,200 hardback copies of Ray's novel, including a book for every public library branch in the state. Collaborating with Hub City and the S.C. Arts Commission to present this contest were the South Carolina State Library and the Humanities Council S.C.  The partners received 115 manuscripts.  

"The Hub City Writers Project looks forward to publishing Mr. Ray and to sharing his work with readers around this state and beyond," said Betsy Teter, executive director of the Hub City Writers Project.

"We are very pleased to provide this unique publishing opportunity during our 40^th anniversary year for one of South Carolina's talented writers," said Sara June Goldstein, director of literary arts for the South Carolina Arts Commission.

The project is funded in part by a Library Services and Technology Act Partnership grant administered by the S.C. State Library and the Institute of Museums and Library Services. For more information about the First Novel Competition, visit www.SouthCarolinaArts.com/firstnovel or call (803) 734-8696.

Artist Biography

Brian Ray of Columbia, S.C., is an instructor of English at the University of South Carolina and the USC Honors College. A former managing editor of Yemassee, USC's graduate literary journal, Ray received a master of fine art's degree in creative writing from USC in 2007 and a bachelor's degree in English in 2005. Ray was a 2007 winner of the S.C. Fiction Project and his stories have appeared in Louisiana Review, Green Mountains Review and Storyteller magazine. While at USC, he received the 2005 James Dickey Award for Poetry and the 2007 James Dickey Award for Short Fiction. An earlier version of his award-winning novel, Girl with her Throat Cut, was a finalist for the 2007 Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society Award for the Novella. An essay on Tim Burton is forthcoming in a collection on film and fairtale/folktale from Utah State University Press.