Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Works by two Mississippi State English faculty members are being featured in two of the nation’s most prestigious anthologies.

“The Upside-Down World,” a 2013 short story by Becky Hagenston, is among 20 included in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2015.

“Relevant Details,” a poem by Catherine Pierce, was chosen for The Best American Poetry 2015.

Both are associate professors at the university.

In addition to teaching creative writing and fiction courses, Hagenston serves as faculty editor and adviser to the semi-annual campus literary journal, Jabberwock Review (www.jabberwock.org.msstate.edu).

Her previous recognitions include a 1996 O. Henry Award, as well as special mentions in Pushcart anthologies and Best American Short Stories. A story titled “Midnight, Licorice, Shadow” also was included as a Distinguished Mystery Story in the 2008 Best American Mysteries list.

Hagenston, whose works have appeared in numerous journals, is the author of three award-winning short-story collections. They include Permafrost Book Prize in Fiction winner “Scavengers” (University of Alaska Press, 2016); Spokane Prize for Short Fiction winner “Strange Weather” (Press 53, 2010); and Mary McCarthy Prize winner “A Gram of Mars” (Sarabande Books, 1998).

A Maryland native, she is an Elizabethtown College graduate who holds master’s degrees from the University of Arizona and New Mexico State University. For more, see www.BeckyHagenston.com.

Pierce co-directs the university’s creative writing program and teaches creative writing and American literature courses. Among others, she has authored two award-winning books of poems, “Famous Last Words” and “The Girls of Peculiar” (Saturnalia, 2008 and 2012, respectively). The former received the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize in 2007; the latter, Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Poetry in 2013.

Additionally, Pierce was honored in 2013 with the MSU College of Arts and Sciences’ Faculty Teaching Award in the Humanities.

Originally from Delaware, she is a Susquehanna University graduate with a master’s degree from Ohio State University and doctorate from the University of Missouri. For more, see www.CatherinePierce.net.

Editions of the O. Henry collection are available for purchase at http://bit.ly/OHenryPrize2015; the poetry collection, at http://bit.ly/BestAmericanPoetry2015.

For more about MSU’s English department and its creative writing program, visit www.english.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.