From staff reports
The family of Ann Head on Monday, June 5, announced Beaufort High School graduating senior McKenzie “Mickie” Thompson as the winner of the fourth annual Ann Head Literary Prize for Short Story Fiction.
Thompson’s prize-winning story, “Wrong Side of Slumber,” is a tale that evokes the mystery of sisterhood. While her younger sister lies deep in a coma, older sister Fallon searches for a way to communicate with her.
In Fallon’s dreams, a childhood invention the sisters shared, a floppy eared stuffed rabbit, Mr. Lucky, appears to risk the blandishments and the threats of the death inspired night-hunter, Mother Owl. The competition judges found the imaginative leap — to rally the tropes of childhood stories to illuminate the scariest moments of adulthood — a stunning approach to portray both the enduring bond of sisters and the continuing influence of childhood fantasies as we face the crises of being an adult.
Throughout high school, Thompson has been involved in several clubs and extracurricular activities, including the National Honor Society, Spanish National Honor Society, and DAYLO (Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization). She will be attending USC Beaufort with the goal of earning a master’s degree in biology and entering the field of wildlife rehabilitation and conservation.
Despite pursuing a career in the sciences, McKenzie also remains passionate about her art and writing, and she fully intends to continue her creative, artistic pursuits as well.
Thompson will receive a cash prize of $500 and her name will be engraved on the Ann Head Literary Prize plaque to be permanently displayed at Beaufort High School. She will also be honored at the Pat Conroy Literary Center where she will be given the opportunity to read from her story.
The finalist for this year’s Ann Head Literary Prize is last year’s prize winner, Christine Conte. Her story, “A Haunted Housewarming,” assembled many of the familiar clichés of haunted houses that we all know too well, and then lightly, inventively turned them upside down and inside out as a new homeowner discovers that his haunted house is, at the very least, a house without a well-worn welcome mat. Conte’s story offered a clever take on notions of home and the connections that bind us to one another.
Conte is also a graduating senior at Beaufort High School, where she has been active in National Honor Society, Key Club International, and Chess Club, as well as running cross country and track. She will be attending the University of Central Florida in Orlando this fall, majoring in aerospace engineering, and looking forward to a bright future in the space industry.
The Ann Head Literary Prize judges extend heartfelt congratulations to Mickie and Chris for their remarkably well-crafted, creative, and enjoyable short stories.
The winning stories were chosen from short stories written by students at Beaufort High School and submitted for consideration. The family is grateful for the enthusiastic support of the Beaufort High School English Department and its chair, Wendy LaCombe, as well as for the support and partnership in this endeavor of Jonathan Haupt, executive director of the Pat Conroy Literary Center.
Writer Ann Head, the pen name of Anne Wales Christensen Head Morse (1915–1968), was the granddaughter of Abbie Holmes Christensen, who came to Beaufort during the Civil War to educate the recently freed enslaved populations of the Sea Islands. Moving back and forth between Boston and Beaufort, Ann carried on the family tradition of bucking traditions and creating new literary forms.
Ann Head was Pat Conroy’s first creative writing teacher at Beaufort High School and became Conroy’s mentor, confidante, and friend. She was a central figure in Beaufort’s mid-century literary scene, befriending many of the famous authors who wintered in Beaufort, including Samuel Hopkins Adams (whom she considered her mentor), Somerset Maugham, John Marquand, and Katherine and E. B. White among others.
Ann Head published more than fifty short stories and serials in the major national magazines of her day, with many of her stories set in a small town just like Beaufort. She wrote of divorce, snobbery, affairs both emotional and sexual, prejudice, death, and out-of-wedlock childbirth, championing the non-typical heroines of the magazines that eagerly accepted her work. In addition, she authored four novels which were published internationally, most notably Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones, a compelling story of teen pregnancy which was on school reading lists for 50 years and is credited with helping create the Young Adult novel genre.
Ann Head died suddenly in 1968, at the age of 52, cutting short a vibrant life and promising literary career. The Life of Ann Head was chronicled by her daughter, Nancy Thode, in a lecture originally presented at the Beaufort County Library and now available on YouTube at https://tinyurl.com/annheadpresentation. To learn more about Ann Head, visit her entry on Wikipedia. Her stories and books are available locally at the main branch of the Beaufort County Library.
