COURTESY BARBARA JOHNSON-DAVIS

Barbara Johnson-Davis of Charlotte earned the Jacobs/Jones African-American Literary Prize for North Carolina writers.

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Barbara Johnson-Davis’ story “The Last Straw” won the Jacobs/Jones African-American Literary Prize.

The Charlotte author earned $1,000, as well as potential publication in The Carolina Quarterly as the award recipient. She was chosen from nine finalists. Last year, her work “May Day Miracle” earned honorable mention.  

“‘The Last Straw’ is a moving story about a young girl choosing a formal education over the family business of farming,” judge Bridgette A. Lacy said in a statement “The stakes are high, taking her final senior exams or planting tobacco. This story feels so authentic and rooted in rural North Carolina, where low-wealth families are often forced to make that choice. The heartfelt dialogue between the father and daughter really resonated with me.”

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Johnson-Davis, a graduate of Bennett College, was born in Leasburg, North Carolina to sharecroppers. A member of the Charlotte Writers’ Club and the North Carolina Writers’ Network, her work has been performed at Matthews Playhouse, Queens University of Charlotte and the Warehouse Performing Arts Center in Cornelius. The literary contest is a collaboration between the North Carolina Writers’ Network and The Creative Writing Program at UNC Chapel Hill.

African Americans with a primary residence in North Carolina are eligible to enter. Submitted work must be unpublished, no more than 3,000 words, and fiction or creative nonfiction. The program was designed by Cedric Brown, a Winston-Salem native and UNC alumnus to highlight short prose by black writers in his home state.

“The literary award was borne out of my frustration with being unable to readily find much fiction or creative nonfiction that conveys the rich and varied existence of black North Carolinians,” Brown said. “I wanted to incentivize the development of written works while also encouraging black writers to capture our lives through storytelling.”

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