The Association of College English Teachers of Alabama solicits nominations for the 2021 Eugene Current-Garcia Award for Distinction in Literary Scholarship. This award is made annually to a living, outstanding literary scholar who is from Alabama or has worked primarily in Alabama or has focused mainly on Alabama writers.

As originally conceived, the award “recognizes and rewards Alabamians who have distinguished themselves as men or women of letters, specifically in scholarly reflection and writing on literary topics.” It also demonstrates “the respect of the scholar’s peers in the academic community and signals to the citizenry at large the lasting importance of the pursuit of knowledge and the contribution of literature to the culture.” The award includes a $5,000 stipend and an original Frank Fleming bronze of the clock tower on the old Monroe County Courthouse.

The 2021 Current-Garcia Award for Distinction in Literary Scholarship will be presented with its sister award, the Harper Lee Award for the 2021 Distinguished Alabama Writer, at the Monroeville Literary Festival held March 4-6, 2021 in Monroeville. The generosity of George Landegger, chairman of Parsons and Whittemore, makes both awards possible. Winners of the Eugene Current-Garcia award are the featured keynote speakers at the ACETA annual conference the year following their award.

A nomination must include a curriculum vita reflecting the course of the nominee’s scholarly career, a detailed bibliography of the nominee’s scholarly productions, and a cover letter clarifying and supporting the nominee’s qualifications for the award. Nominations may contain other letters of support from recognized scholars in the nominee’s field; they should not contain copies of actual publications.

Nominations may be sent via traditional mail to Ashley Kitchens, ACETA Executive Secretary, Jefferson State Community College, 1850 Lay Dam Road, Clanton, Alabama 35045 or via email to alcollegeenglish@gmail.com with the subject “Current-Garcia Nomination.”

The deadline for nominations is November 6, 2020. ACETA’s steering committee will review all nominations and select a winner, whose name will be announced at the 2021 ACETA Virtual conference. All nominations and all committee deliberations are confidential.

The award is named for the late Dr. Eugene Current-Garcia, who, in a distinguished academic career spanning five decades, mostly at Auburn University, published six books and dozens of articles and reviews on the short story genre and Old Southwest humor and also founded and co-edited the Southern Humanities Review.

Previous winners of the Eugene Current-Garcia Award include Claudia Durst Johnson (1998), Philip Beidler (1999), Don Noble (2000), Bert Hitchcock (2001), Trudier Harris (2002), William Hutchings (2003), Benjamin B. Williams (2004), Robert W. Halli, Jr. (2005), Nancy Grisham Anderson (2006), Elaine W. Hughes (2007), Norman McMillan (2008), John H. Hafner (2009), Ralph Voss (2010), David Sauer (2011), Bill Ulmer (2012), Sue Walker (2013), Wayne Flynt (2014), Eric Sterling (2015), Frye Gaillard (2016), Kirk Curnutt (2017), David Cowart (2018), Chris Metress (2019), and Robert Evans (2020).