Garnette Lockhart wins the 2008 Novel of Promise award.

This season past brought a considerable number of submissions and among these more than a few of real promise. May every one of these writers take seriously our encouragement that they write and re-write and submit again.

But this time around there was little difficulty making a choice. The patient process of writing and re-writing produced an outstanding submission. Southern born and bred Garnette Lockhart has arrested everyone's attention as she breathes startling life into Lala Concepcion, the extravagant protagonist of Pitch Weed. Lockhart's submission is the first chapter of the first novel of her trilogy of novels that stretches from the closing of the American Civil War to the end of the nineteenth century. Three of these novels are now written and the fourth is underway.

As part of the prize offered to every winner of the Novel of Promise award, Ms. Lockhart will receive all the support we can muster. May that support translate into successful authorship!.

Evocative, transgressional, and raunchy, carefully wrought and slyly intelligent, the world Lockhart creates in a few pages commands attention.

And take a minute to read Lockhart's thoughtful perspective on the writing process in this interview.