APSU creative writing professor named finalist for Midwest Book Awards
By: Kara Zahn May 24, 2024
Dr. Raymond (RS) Deeren, assistant professor in APSU’s Department of Languages and Literature. | Photo by Sean McCully
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — On the heels of winning a 2024 Michigan Notable Book award, Austin Peay State University (APSU) assistant professor Dr. Raymond (RS) Deeren has been named a Midwest Book Award finalist for his debut collection of short stories, Enough to Lose.
Deeren is being recognized in the Short Story/Anthology category of the 34th Annual Midwest Book Awards. The winners will be announced during a gala hosted on June 22, 2024, at the Mall of America in Minneapolis.
“It means the world to me that these stories from my neck of the woods have resonated with readers across the country,” Deeren said. “It’s humbling to know there is a desire for working-class storytelling.”
The Midwest Book Awards are presented by the Midwest Independent Publishers Association (MiPA), a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting independent publishers in the Midwest. The awards are open to all books published in the Midwest in the year leading up to the event.
MiPA founders organized the first Midwest Book Awards in 1989, and it has grown into one of the country’s longest-running literary recognition programs. Judges include booksellers, university staff and librarians who are subject matter experts representing each of MiPA’s 12 states.
The public is invited to attend the event on June 22, 2024, and all the finalists can be viewed at https://mipa.org/midwest-book-awards/2024-finalists.
About RS Deeren:
Dr. Raymond Deeren, better known as RS Deeren, is an assistant professor in the Department of Languages & Literature. He writes about odd jobs that helped him and others like him pay the bills. Originally from the rural working-class Thumb Region of Michigan, his fiction focuses on how social class plays to and through aspects of American life such as race, gender and sexuality. Deeren is part of the Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts at Austin Peay as the coordinator of the creative writing program and the fiction editor for Zone 3 Press (APSU's internationally distributed literary magazine). He is also the faculty representative for the Creative Writing Club.