1:32 p.m., Sept. 25, 2008----When alumnus Anthony Varallo, AS '92, received a phone call telling him he had won the prestigious 2008 Drue Heinz Literature Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press for his new short story collection, Out Loud, he said he couldn't believe it and thought someone was kidding him.

THIS STORY

E-mail

Print

Twitter

But the award was real and in addition to prize money, his book was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Manuscripts are judged anonymously by nationally known writers such as Robert Penn Warren and Joyce Carol Oates. Scott Turow, an attorney and best-selling author of suspense novels, was the judge who selected Out Loud from close to 300 entries.

Varallo is a Delawarean through and through. He grew up in Yorklyn and graduated from A.I. du Pont High School, and, as a freshman at UD, moved into various rooms in the Gilbert Complex. “I knew I moved because the shades of green were different,” he recalled.

He said he was the usual college student who did not know what he wanted to do. Varallo majored in English--“I knew I was no good at math,” he said--and took a course in creative writing from Bernie Kaplan, associate professor of English, and discovered his calling. Kaplan was a “great teacher” and so were his other English professors at UD--including Kevin Kerrane, Fleda Brown and Cruce Stark, Varallo said.

Things were very different when he was in school in the 1980s--mimeographs instead of e-mail, no decent coffee to drink, and Main Street was kind of grungy, he said. “I love UD--it was a great experience.”

Varallo said he frequently uses Delaware as a setting for his short stories, but does not identify it in the stories. “Delaware is state that is sort of left out and it's a great place to be from,” he said. In a short story, “In the Age of Automobiles” (included in On The Mason-Dixon Line: An Anthology of Contemporary Delaware Writers, just published by the UD Press) Varallo said the setting was actually North Wilmington.

In his stories, the main characters have been young, but now he has a son and daughter and is beginning to write as a parent, Varallo said.

After graduating from UD, Varallo received his master of fine arts degree from the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, and his doctorate from the University of Missouri. He met his wife Malinda, who also is a writer, at Iowa, and they both teach at the College of Charleston, where Varallo is an assistant professor of English.

“I love teaching, especially creative writing. I make my students write and that's good discipline for me because it means I have to practice what I teach and write myself,” he said.

Article by Sue Moncure
Photo courtesy of Malinda McCollum