Kenneth and Elissa May Plattner established the Denny C. Plattner Awards in 1995 to honor their late son, Denny, and his love for writing. Each year since, judges have selected the best pieces to appear that year in Appalachian Heritage. First place winners each receive $200.00, and all winners receive bookracks from Berea College Crafts.
Fiction
Judged by Lee Maynard
Winner: Kevin C. Stewart, “Silenced” (Fall)
Honorable Mention:
Pinckney Benedict, "Joe Messinger is Dreaming” (Fall)
Vicki Crawford, “Freedom Glass” (Fall)
Chris Offutt, “A Good Pine” (Spring)
Poetry
Judged by Fred Chappell
Winner: Diane Gilliam, “Your Pencil Breaks” (Summer)
Honorable Mention:
Vicky Hayes, “Pentecostal Heart” (Winter)
Patti Capel Swartz, “Open Palm” (Summer)
Sylvia Woods, “Wearing My Grammar Girdle” (Winter)
Non-Fiction
Judged by Helen Lewis
Winner: George Hovis, “In Praise of ‘Foward Looking Men’: Thomas Wolfe’s Rejection of Pastoral in The Hills Beyond” (Fall)
Marianne Worthington, “‘Be my inscape, be my lyre’: The Hymnody of Albert Stewart” (Summer)
Honorable Mention:
Tim Homan, “Where the Creek Turkey Tracks: Wild Land and Language” (Winter)
James E. Person, Jr., “Portrait of the Artist as an Appalachian Writer” (Spring)
Carter Taylor Seaton, “Those Who Came” (Spring)