Shreveport, LA—LSU Shreveport’s Dr. Dorie LaRue, Professor of English and Foreign Languages, was awarded a $14,781 grant by the State of Louisiana Board of Regents Support Fund (BORSF) to publish a complete collection of short stories. The stories will showcase the difficulty of social change and displace the cultural isolation of the contemporary South. Dr. LaRue was ranked 11th in a listing of 15 top priority proposals for the Awards to Louisiana Artists and Scholars (ATLAS) program, a subprogram of the BORSF Research and Development Program.
Dr. LaRue’s collection of short fiction will portray the New South, decades removed from revered writers such as Faulkner, O’Connor, and McCullers. The approach is a purposeful interplay of stories told from both female and male points of view and will address the evolvement of gender and race differences as the South has changed, especially in light of abiding cultural conditioning. Audiences will include readers of literary and feminist fiction, as well as general readers.
“The subtitle “Stories from the New South” says it all,” Dr. LaRue said. “I want my stories to update the way Southerners are seen in fiction. It’s time for contemporary characters to be onstage, those who have come to terms with the challenges of change and embraced new roles. My goal is to show strong female characters and the men who courageously connect with them.”
Forty-nine proposals requesting a total of $2,102,505 were submitted to the BORSF for funding consideration in the 2020-21 fiscal year. Proposals were solicited for creative and scholarly activities undertaken by faculty in arts, humanities, and social sciences disciplines.
“I am honored to receive the ATLAS grant. It is inspiring that the judges deemed my work so far worthy, and that they support my future endeavors,” Dr. LaRue said.
Panels of out-of-state experts evaluated all proposals and provided funding recommendations to the Board of Regents in a two-phase process. Recommendations were based on the significance of the project to its field of study and interest for broader academic and/or lay audiences, the strength of the proposal’s argument, the quality of the applicant’s previous work, and the feasibility of the proposed plan of work. The panel also considered the appropriateness of the budget request in making final funding recommendations.
