Toni Jensen Awarded 2024 Porter Literary Fund Prize

Toni Jensen, associate professor of fiction and director of the Program in Creative Writing and Translation in the Department of English, has won the 2024 Porter Fund Literary Prize, presented annually by a nonprofit established in 1984 in honor of Ben Kimpel, chair of the U of A English Department during the 1970s. 

“We are so proud of Toni and applaud the selection committee’s decision to award her this year’s Porter Prize. This award follows in a long line of similarly impressive achievements, confirming once again Toni’s stature as of writer of note within the state of Arkansas and nationally,” said Yajaira Padilla, chair of the Department of English.

The award is presented to an Arkansas writer who has accomplished a “substantial and impressive body of work that merits enhanced recognition.”

“I’ve lived in Arkansas for a decade now, and my ties to and love for the place and its people strengthen each year,” Jensen said in a press release. “I was both surprised and moved by the Porter Prize committee’s decision. Arkansans have such a long, rich history of storytelling, and I’m proud to be considered an Arkansas writer and to be honored in this way.” 

Jensen is the author of 2020’s Carry, a memoir-in-essays about gun violence, land and indigenous women’s lives (Ballantine, 2020). She is also the author of a short story collection, From the Hilltop. She is the recipient of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. Her essays and stories have been published in journals such as Orion, Catapult and Ecotone. She teaches in the Program in Creative Writing and Translation at the U of A and in the low residency M.F.A. Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is Métis.

Founded in 1966, the U of A Program in Creative Writing and Translation in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences consistently ranks in the top 40 M.F.A. programs nationwide, according to Poets & Writers magazine. The Atlantic Monthly named the U of A among the “Top Five Most Innovative” M.F.A. programs in the nation. Noteworthy graduates include Barry Hannah, C.D. Wright, Lucinda Roy and Nic Pizzolatto.  

This story also appeared in the University of Arkansas News publication.