150 2 018
2019
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
DorisBetts Fiction Prize, 2nd Place
Billy landed his job the first year on the market. He hadn’t thought he was such a star, but there it was.
The Graduate Seminar in Early Modern Pastoral turned out to be more enriching than the catalog had implied. For one thing, Billy had met Kristen, who took the seat beside his because, as she said, it didn’t look like she’d be catching the reek of cigarettes off him for an hour and a half twice a week. In this she was correct. He had not had a cigarette in his mouth once in his life. Another quality was that the situation allowed – nay, encouraged – the fabrication and bestowal of pastoral nicknames, like those in the texts they studied. This practice was both learned and vaguely naughty. He became Corin. She became Dorinda. They were not sure at first whether they should reveal to their professor that they’d named him Phoenix, but when he found out, he recognized the reference and was all smiles. They got As. Billy landed his job the first year on the market. He hadn’t thought he was such a star, but there it was. His specialties and the needs of the English department achieved such an uncanny congruence that he had been offered the job sub rosa, even before the Modern Language Association convention adjourned. At the interview, he made clear that he was part of a package, a team, and that his new wife was as accomplished a scholar and teacher as himself, as well as possessing a variety of skills that should recommend her to the department all on her own. They met her, liked her, and agreed that as soon as something opened up she could be edged in without the whole official search apparatus. There were a number of way of accomplishing that. One involved in the process might note that she had written on Spenser and he on pastoral elements in Shakespeare and the Metaphysicians. On the level of concentration and credentials they were practically the same person. Even so, he had been quite
CORIN BY
DAVID HOPES
AND
DORINDA
DAVID HOPES is a Professor in the Department of English at UNC Asheville. His novel, The Falls of the Wyona, won the 2018 Quill Prize from Red Hen Press. His plays Uranium 235 and Night Music were recently performed at Asheville’s Magnetic Theatre, and his latest book of poems, Peniel, was published by Saint Julian Press in 2017.
Final judge Stephanie Powell Watts called “Corin and Dorinda” “an emotionally intelligent story about what we are owed and what duty we have to the people in our lives in happy times and especially when we don’t get what we desperately need.”