ATLANTA – South Arts announces Southern Prize for Literary Arts winner and finalist including a Georgia writer awarded literary funds.
Release:
South Arts is pleased to announce that Aurielle Marie was named the Southern Prize for Literary Arts winner, receiving a $25,000 award. During a ceremony at the Jaipur Literature Festival at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Marie was honored alongside the Southern Prize for Literary Arts Finalist Ashley Jones, who received a $10,000 award.
“We are excited to award these two talented writers as we’ve watched them work tirelessly to hone their craft and uplift the literary culture of the American South,” said Gretchen McLennon, interim South Arts President and CEO. “Having shown nuance in both subject matter and structure, Marie and Jones have stood out among their contemporaries. Their commitment to developing extensive portfolios has contributed greatly to the southern literary zeitgeist, and we are proud that South Arts can play a supporting role in that development.”
Established in 2017, the Southern Prize and State Fellowships program was created in acknowledgment of a discrepancy in regional funding for artists across all disciplines, annually awarding fellows from each state in South Arts’ region: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Since 2024, the program has expanded to include support for the literary arts in addition to the longstanding visual arts component. The multi-state initiative awarded 18 State Fellows in May 2025 with unrestricted cash prizes of $5,000 each—nine literary arts fellows and nine visual arts fellows.
Each year, the Southern Prize Winner and Finalist are selected by a national jury, as those who have exhibited artistic excellence and have stood out among their cohort of State Fellows for Literary Arts. In addition to the cash prize, both fellows are awarded access to a creative sanctuary in The Writers Room at The Betsy-South Beach, where they can focus on completing in-progress work or initiating new projects through a writer’s residency.
The 2025 State Fellows for Literary Arts are:
2025 Alabama Fellow for Literary Arts & Southern Prize Finalist
Ashley Jones
Birmingham, AL
2025 Kentucky Fellow for Literary Arts
Julie Hensley
Richmond, KY
2025 North Carolina Fellow for Literary Arts
Meg Day
Durham, NC
2025 Florida Fellow for Literary Arts
Jessica Stark
Jacksonville, FL
2025 Georgia Fellow for Literary Arts & Southern Prize Winner
Aurielle Marie
Atlanta, GA
2025 Louisiana Fellow for Literary Arts
Karisma Price
New Orleans, LA
2025 South Carolina Fellow for Literary Arts
Shakeema Smalls
Georgetown, SC
2025 Mississippi Fellow for Literary Arts
C.T. Salazar
Cleveland, MS
2025 Tennessee Fellow for Literary Arts
Marcus Wicker
Memphis, TN
This year, the Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Literary Arts program focused on supporting poetry writers. Georgia fellow and Southern Prize winner Aurielle Marie’s work focuses on three primary themes: Sex, Systems, and the South. Her poetry aims to subvert caricatures of the South while examining gender, disability, and sexuality and critiquing racism and intimate violence. Mirroring the rhythms of jazz, Marie uses disorder as a tool of improvisation, often requiring the reader to turn a page on its side or read through blurred and stacked text.
Moved by the poetry of Harriet Tubman, Southern Prize Finalist Ashley Jones uses her poetry as a tool of ancestral connection and truth telling. Her work is most concerned with examining her place in America, Black history, God, womanhood, and about what it feels like to experience the planet as a human being. Using the page as an infinite space of creation, Jones writes in both traditional form as well as free verse and unconventional shapes.
“Marie and Jones have distinguished themselves among a remarkable group of Southern writers who embody our mission to elevate contemporary voices from the region,” said Emmitt Stevenson, South Arts Director of Artist Engagement. “Both are exceptional writers whose technical mastery allows them to experiment with structure, while conveying powerful messages of identity, disparity, and introspection. These awards truly reflect the path we have charted through the Southern Prize program to amplify and celebrate Southern literary culture.”
Alongside the prizes and cash awards, a collection of poetry featuring works by Aurielle Mairie and other Southern literary artists from this year’s fellowship class, will also be published in partnership with Hub City Press in a new anthology, titled Better Futures, Better Songs.
The Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Literary Arts program is supported by the Amazon Literary Partnership Poetry Fund and the Academy of American Poets, The Betsy Hotel-South Beach, the Warner Fund, and individual donors. For more information about the Southern Prize and State Fellowship programs, application eligibility, and additional opportunities from South Arts, please visit southarts.org.
About South Arts
South Arts advances Southern vitality through the arts. The nonprofit regional arts organization was founded in 1975 to build on the South’s unique heritage and enhance the public value of the arts. South Arts’ work responds to the arts environment and cultural trends with a regional perspective. South Arts offers an annual portfolio of activities designed to support the success of artists and arts providers in the South, address the needs of Southern communities through impactful arts-based programs, and celebrate the excellence, innovation, value and power of the arts of the South. For more information, visit www.southarts.org.
