Bay Area author wins Oates Prize
Daniel Mason, the Bay Area author of such acclaimed novels as “The Winter Soldier” and “The Piano Tuner” as well as the recently released short story collection “A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth,” has been awarded the 2020 Joyce Carol Oates Prize by the Simpson Literary Project.
The annual prize, which recognizes a midcareer author of fiction, comes with a $50,000 cash award. It calls for Mason, who is also a psychiatrist who teaches at Stanford University, to make a series of Bay Area appearances in October and to participate in a 10day residency in Berkeley and Lafayette next spring.
In a phone interview with The Chronicle, Mason, 44, said that the COVID19 pandemic had upended the practical and financial aspects of his work as a writer — particularly with the short story collection, which came out last week.
“The book is technically out — I have some physical copies of it — but it all feels different,” he said. “I was supposed to have a tour, but that was canceled. I’ve had some lovely public conversations about the book, but they’re all over Zoom.”
Similarly, the cash award comes at a time when things are in flux.
“It doesn’t change the nature of my appointment at Stanford, but at the same time I live in the Bay Area, so everything certainly helps,” he said. “Under other circumstances, this money would be helpful in finding a space to write, but I think people are just trying to figure out what finances mean in this period.”
The pandemic also has him reexamining his next writing project, which unlike his previous work was to be set in contemporary California.
“Trying to think about how to make a work relevant is tough. I’m trying to figure out whether there’s a way to integrate the pandemic,” he said. “One of the benefits of writing fiction set in the past is that there aren’t any sudden pandemics to deal with.”
The Simpson Literary Project, established in 2016, is a partnership of the English department at UC Berkeley and the Lafayette Library and Learning Center Foundation. It supports new literature and authors and offers free writing workshops for highschoolage writers.
The prize’s emphasis on midcareer writers was a deliberate decision, said Project chairman Joseph Di Prisco.
“There are too damn many ‘emerging writer’ prizes — what about emerged writers?” he said. “Ninetyfive percent of publishers’ catalogs are made up of writers in the middle of their careers, but unless you’re J.K. Rowling or Stephen King, you’re not on the bestseller lists. You need support.”
Previous winners of the prize, which was originally called the Simpson Family Literary Prize, are T. Geronimo Johnson, Anthony Marra and Laila Lalami. Novelist Joyce Carol Oates, the prize’s namesake, is an honorary member of the project’s board of directors and has served as Simpson Project writer in residence.
Shortlisted for this year’s award were authors Chris Bachelder, Maria Dahvana Headley, Rebecca Makkai, Peter Orner, Dexter Palmer and Kevin Wilson.