North Carolina on the Map and in the News
N C L R ONLINE
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2017 PARKER AWARD WINNER PAYS IT FORWARD with acceptance remarks by Margaret D. Bauer North Carolina Literary and Historical Association meeting Raleigh, NC, 16 November 2017
PHOTOGRAPH BY LINDA FOX; COURTESY OF THE NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL AND CULTURAL RESOURCES
Also at the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association’s annual awards banquet, NCLR Editor Margaret Bauer received the R. Hunt Parker Memorial Award, which “acknowledges significant contributions to the literary life of North Carolina.” You can read more about these contributions in the story about her 2017 North Carolina Award for Literature, elsewhere in this issue. Here we include her acceptance remarks, in support of her desire to pay forward the support of the late – and much missed – Kathryn Stripling Byer. n n n
ABOVE Left to right, Carlton zum Brunnen, Margaret Bauer,
ABOVE NCLR Editor Margaret Bauer receiving the 2017 R. Hunt
Ian Finley, Serena Ebhart, David zum Brunnen, and Lorraine Hale Robinson, celebrating new awards at the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association’s annual awards banquet, Raleigh, 16 Nov. 2017
Parker Memorial Award from former North Carolina Literary and Historical Association President James W. Clark, Jr., Raleigh, 16 Nov. 2017
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW MOREHEAD
Back in 1998 when my dear friend and colleague Alex Albright received this award shortly after my first issue of NCLR had appeared, I could not have imagined being so honored. A member of “Lit & Hist” in my twenty-plus years as NCLR editor, I’m familiar
with this award and know what kind of company I am now in – my mentor Jim Clark [James W. Clark, Jr., who presented the award]; the editors par excellence, Louis Rubin and Shannon Ravenel; the Paul Green scholar whose shoes are as hard to fill as Alex’s, Laurence Avery; so many of “my” beloved writers, at least two of whom I’ve had the opportunity to present this award to, Eastern North Carolina literary stars Jill McCorkle and Michael Parker; and NCLR’s biggest cheerleader, Kathryn Stripling Byer (I witnessed her at many podiums telling everyone to subscribe). Now it is my turn to pay it forward: go see Native, by the Hardee-Rives awardees you just heard about, EbzB Productions, here with the play’s author, Ian Finley tonight. I am, as I often am – thanks to having the best job I could never have imagined – in the finest company among those honored this year and in previous years. Thank you to the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association. n