Paul Stapleton, a Ph.D. candidate in comparative literature in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, has won a Pushcart Prize for Fiction for his short story, “The Fall of Punicea.”
The story was published in the spring 2011 edition of J Journal: New Writing on Justice, the literary journal of John Jay College of Criminal Justice at The City University of New York.
Co-edited by professors Adam Berlin and Jeffrey Heiman of the English department, J Journal is published twice a year, targeting readers of literary journals and criminal justice professionals interested in creative writing. Contributors to the journal, sending work from across the nation and overseas, include new and established writers, lawyers, police officers, inmates and professors in the social sciences and humanities.
“We are so pleased that Paul Stapleton’s vivid, comic moment of imagined history will receive a wider readership,” said J Journal‘s editors Berlin and Heiman. “As we approach our 10th issue, we are starting to set the foundation for an enduring contribution to the literature of justice.”
Stapleton has advanced degrees in classics and creative writing and is currently pursuing his PhD in comparative literature at UNC.
The Pushcart Prize — Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, is one of the most honored literary projects in America. The country’s top presses and most talented writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in the pages of the annual collections.
An international leader in educating for justice, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York offers a rich liberal arts and professional studies curriculum to upwards of 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 135 nations.
