English professor Thomas McConnell, College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded an artist residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska to continue work on a novel-in-progress titled “The Traveler’s Scroll.”

An excerpt from the manuscript won the Hackney National Short Story Competition earlier this year and appears in the Fall 2013 issue of the Birmingham Arts Journal.

Last month another work won second prize in the Porter Fleming Award for the Essay, an annual competition for Southeasterner writers.