Ojibwe professor wins Flannery O'Connor Award

Professor earns Flannery O’Connor Award for book

By Konnie LeMayThis collection of stories earned Grover one of two 2009 Flannery O’Connor Awards for Short Fiction from the University of Georgia Press. Since 1983, the awards have included a cash prize and publication of a short story collection. Grover’s “The Dance Boots” will be published Sept. 15.

Grover is a member of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa in Minnesota and is an assistant professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

“These stories are genuine and sincere. (The collection) wasn’t academic, it wasn’t cloy. … It was funny and these people’s lives are important,” Nancy Zafris, editor for the Flannery O’Connor Award series, said of Grover’s work. “All of her cultural and linguistic details … broaden the stories. The stories seem universal to me.”Comment:  For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Books.

Below:  "Linda LeGarde Grover, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, earned a Flannery O’Connor award for a collection of short stories that sprang from her Ojibwe heritage." (Konnie LeMay)