Former Atlanta high school English teacher Julia Franks has won the 2018 Townsend Prize in fiction for her debut, "Over the Plain Houses."
Set in 1939, Franks’ novel is a tragic tale of a troubled marriage fueled by religious obsession and an oppressed woman’s awakening in the North Carolina mountains.
Administered by the Chattahoochee Review and the Georgia Center for the Book, the Townsend Prize is awarded to a Georgia novelist every two years.
The other nominees were Sarah Domet for “The Guineveres”; Joshilyn Jackson for “The Opposite of Everyone”; Martha Hall Kelly for “Lilac Girls”; Man Martin for “The Lemon Jell-O Syndrome”; Thomas Mullen for “Lightning Men”; Stacia Pelletier for “The Half Wives”; “Jonathan Rabb for “Among the Living”; Christopher Swann for “Shadow of the Lions”; and Daren Wang for “The Hidden Light of Northern Fires.”
