Books include a collection of short stories, Aliens In The Prime of Their Lives (Norton), Last Days of the Dog-Men (Norton), which received the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a novel, The Heaven of Mercury (Norton), which received the Southern Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction and was a finalist for the 2002 National Book Award in Fiction. Awarded a 2004 NEA fellowship and a 2006 writing residency from the Lannan Foundation.
National Endowment for the Arts Grant in Fiction, 2004
Nominated for The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, 2004, The Heaven of Mercury
Southern Book Award in Fiction, Southern Book Critics Circle, 2003, The Heaven of Mercury
Fiction Award, Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters, 2003, The Heaven of Mercury
Finalist, National Book Award in Fiction, 2002, The Heaven of Mercury
Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, 1997, Last days of the Dog Men
Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1997, Last Days of the Dog-Men
Best American Mystery Stories, 1997 and 2000, Houghton Mifflin (both stories also cited as Honorable Mention in same publisher's Best American Short Stories in those years)
Advisor to three winners of Hoopes Prize thesis award, Harvard University, 1998 & 1999
Shane Stevens Fellow in Fiction, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, 1996
Teaching-Writing Fellow, University of Alabama Creative Writing Program, 1979 and 1980
