Echo Park Native Surprised to Win 2011 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award

Former Echo Park resident Brando Skyhorse still can't quite believe his first collection of stories, The Madonnas of Echo Park, is the winner of a prestigious award like the 2011 Hemingway Foundation/PEN award.

 "There were an enormous number of good books published last year," he told Echo Park Patch.  "I had no expectation Madonnas would receive accolades of any kind, let alone something as prestigious as [this award]."

The New England-based writers' group announced the award Tuesday, which honors a noteworthy first book of fiction or short stories.

Skyhorse used Echo Park as the setting for his series of interlocking stories that dramatize the huge changes that have come to the area economically, ethnically and socially.

Skyhorse's next book--a memoir about growing up with five stepfathers--will also be set in Los Angeles, though not Echo Park.

"Several friends I've known for years all approached me at separate points and said, 'You have to finish this soon,'" he said.  "No pressure or anything, right?"

Yet Skyhorse doesn't consider himself a voice of Los Angeles. "If other people see it that way, it'd be wonderful and flattering, but that's not for me to say," he said.

He has recently begun planning to move back to Los Angeles from New York since rediscovering his birth father in Whittier.

The Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award is given for a novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a book of fiction. Each year it is chosen by three fiction writers.

This year's judges were Allegra Goodman, Edward P. Jones and Jayne Anne Phillips.
 
“We were delighted that our distinguished panel of judges picked Brando Skyhorse's novel as this year's winner," said Hemingway/PEN administrator Helene Atwan in an email.

“The judges read over 150 books. Brando's book, obviously, is truly exceptional," she added.
 
Skyhorse will receive the Hemingway/PEN award at a ceremony at Boston's JFK Presidential Library on March 27th.

In addition to $8,000, Skyhorse will also receive a one-week residency in the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series at the University of Idaho’s MFA Program in Creative Writing.

Skyhorse said he has not yet decided what to do with the prize money, though he did give some of his advance on The Madonnas of Echo Park to local literary nonprofit LA 826.