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John Blair, born in St. Petersburg, Florida, has become the first Florida-born author to win the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry, which celebrates its first decade of awards this year. Blair, who now lives in San Marcos, Texas, received the tenth annual prize for his manuscript entitled The Occasions of Paradise. In addition to a $2,000 check, the award includes book publication in Spring 2012 by the University of Tampa Press. Blair’s earlier poetry collection, The Green Girls, was the 2003 winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Award from Pleiades Press, and his short story collection, American Standard, was the 2002 winner of the Drue Heinz Literature prize and was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. He also has two novels from Ballantine/Del Rey, Bright Angel and A Landscape of Darkness. |
