CSUN Professor Wins Fiction Writing Award

LOS ANGELES (CNS) A coming-of-age novel about a mixed-race boy in the bayous of Louisiana, written by an English professor at Cal State Northridge, is the winner of the 2017 PEN Center USA Fiction Award, the organization announced Wednesday.

The award will be presented to Martin Pousson for his book, "Black Sheep Boy," at PEN Center USA's 27th annual Literary Awards Festival on Oct. 27 at the Beverly Wilshire hotel.

"I am so humbled and heart grateful to PEN Center USA for this incredible, unexpected honor," Pousson said. "It means all the more to me coming from a literary foundation with an activist mission to defend the unjustly jailed, the unlawfully censored and the unfairly persecuted. PEN Center USA stands with outsiders, journalists and all writers who dare speak truth to power."

Pousson said "Black Sheep Boy" taps into the Cajun bayou land of his youth with its mix of races, religions, languages and cultures.

The book's main character is a misfit, an outcast and a loner, but not a victim. He is the son of a mixed-race Holy Ghost mother and a Cajun-French phantom father. In a series of stories, he encounters gender outlaws, drag queen renegades, and a rogues' gallery of sex-starved priests, perverted teachers and murderous bar owners. To escape his past, he must create a story for himself.

Elizabeth Say, dean of CSUN's College of Humanities, said Pousson's colleagues were thrilled that he won the award.

"We have long known what a talented writer and teacher he is and celebrate this recognition of his talents by his peers," she said.

"Black Sheep Boy" was published by Rare Birds Lit, a small, independent company. Pousson self-funded part of a limited tour for his book.

— CNS; Image via CSUN

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