Lowcountry writer wins S.C. Novel Series with debut work
A look at blue-collar Lowcountry life
Hub City Press announced today that Robert Maynor was selected as the winner of the 2022 South Carolina Novel Series for his debut novel, The Big Game is Every Night.
Hub City Press will publish the novel in the fall of 2023.
The
South Carolina Novel Series publishes a novel by a South Carolina writer biennially. Writers selected for publication in this series are awarded $1,500 and book publication, including marketing and tour support from Hub City Press and the series partners. The novel also receives placement in all South Carolina state libraries and readings/events with presenting sponsors.
The Big Game is Every Night is told in the keen, honest voice of a young high school football player growing up in rural South Carolina Lowcountry and gives readers a glimpse into the cultural forces that shape contemporary blue-collar America.
“The South Carolina Arts Commission is proud to provide South Carolina’s artists with career development opportunities like this one. We are excited to read a novel that is set in our state and is by a South Carolina author. Congratulations to Robert on this achievement, and we thank Hub City Press for being our partners,” South Carolina Arts Commission Executive Director
David Platts said.
“Hub City Press is thrilled to publish Robert's debut novel as the inaugural selection of the South Carolina Novel Series next year, and to continue the great work we have accomplished in our 15-year partnership with the South Carolina Arts Commission,” said
Meg Reid, director of Hub City Press.
About Robert Maynor
Robert Maynor is from the Lowcountry of South Carolina. He lives and writes in a patched-up fish camp on the bank of the Edisto River, the longest free-flowing blackwater river in North America. His fiction explores the spectrum of complexities and contradictions in the contemporary American South. His short stories have appeared in
Blood Orange Review, BULL, the Carolina Quarterly, and
CRAFT, among other outlets. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and he is the past recipient of the Larry Brown Short Story Award and the Coker Fellowship in Fiction from the South Carolina Academy of Authors.
The Big Game Is Every Night is his first novel.
About the S.C. Novel Series
The
South Carolina Novel Series is open to writers of all levels who have lived in South Carolina for at least one year prior to submission of their manuscript. Co-sponsors include the South Carolina Arts Commission, the South Carolina State Library and South Carolina Humanities. Submissions for the series will open on Jan. 1, 2024 and close April 15, 2024. No submission fee is required.
Series Partners
The South Carolina Arts Commission is the state agency charged with creating a thriving arts environment that benefits all South Carolinians, regardless of their location or circumstances. Created by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1967, the Arts Commission works to increase public participation in the arts by providing services, grants and leadership initiatives in three areas: arts education, community arts development and artist development. Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., the Arts Commission is funded by the state of South Carolina, by the federal government through the National Endowment for the Arts and other sources. Visit
SouthCarolinaArts.com or call 803.734.8696, and follow @scartscomm on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for #Arts4SC and #SCartists content.
Founded in Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1995,
Hub City Press is the South’s premier independent literary press. Focused on finding and spotlighting extraordinary new and unsung writers from the American South, our curated list champions diverse authors and books that don’t fit into the commercial publishing landscape. The press has published over ninety high-caliber literary works, including novels, short stories, poetry, memoir, and books emphasizing the region's culture and history. Hub City is interested in books with a strong sense of place and is committed to introducing a diverse roster of lesser-heard Southern voices.
The South Carolina State Library develops, supports, and sustains a thriving statewide community of learners committed to making South Carolina stronger. The Library serves the people of South Carolina by supporting state government and libraries to provide opportunities for learning in a changing environment. It is the primary administrator of federal and state support for the state’s libraries. In 1969, as the result of action by the General Assembly, the State Library Board was redesignated as the South Carolina State Library and assumed responsibility for public library development, library service for state institutions, service for the blind and physically handicapped, and library service to state government agencies. Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., the Library is funded by the state of South Carolina, by the federal government through the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and other sources. For more information, please visit
www.statelibrary.sc.gov or call 803.734.8666.
South Carolina Humanities is the state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The mission of South Carolina Humanities is to enrich the cultural and intellectual lives of all South Carolinians. South Carolina Humanities programs and initiatives are balanced, reflect sensitivity to a diversity of ideas, encourage open dialogue, demonstrate integrity, and are ethical in operations. For more information, visit
www.schumanities.org or call 803.771.2477.
The Big Game Is Every Night, debut novel of South Carolina Novel Series winner Robert Maynor, is set for release by Hub City Press today. Maynor, a Lowcountry writer, was announced as inaugural winner of the novel series roughly a year ago. Writers selected for biennial publication in this series are awarded $1,500 and book publication, including marketing and tour support from Hub City Press and the series partners: the South Carolina Arts Commission, South Carolina State Library, and South Carolina Humanities.
The novel also receives placement in all South Carolina state libraries and readings/events with presenting sponsors, making it accessible to broad segments of our population! Keep reading for tour dates.
Hub City Press Director Meg Reid will assume the role of executive director and publisher.
Reid joined Hub City Writers Project in 2013 as assistant director, and in 2017 became director of Hub City Press and programs amid the press’s move to a national distributor. Reid has been an integral part of Hub City Press’s rise as a nationally significant publisher. Since 2017, Hub City Press books have made regular appearances in national newspapers, including at least eight mentions in the New York Times Book Review, as well as the Wall Street Journal, magazines like the New Yorker, and on NPR and Good Morning America. Books have won many awards and been longlisted for awards like the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and The Story Prize and have been translated into German, Italian, Vietnamese, Korean and many other languages. Reid was named a Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree in 2021.
“I've watched Meg absolutely find her niche at Hub City over the last decade, and I know she’s ready to lead,” says Susan Myers, chair of Hub City Writers Projects’ board of directors. “We are beyond lucky to have her immense talent and experience to guide the organization with a clear vision.”
“The work I’ve done for Hub City over the past ten years has fundamentally changed the way I think about the world and has fostered in me a belief that inclusive literary communities are vital in all places, large and small,” says Reid. “I’m deeply honored to have the chance to lead the organization into its exciting next chapter.”
As the head of HCWP’s leadership team, Reid will develop a mission-driven business strategy and overall artistic vision for the organization, leading from a firm set of values based on equity, community partnerships, and transparency.
“Meg has devoted the past decade of her professional career advancing the mission of Hub City Writers Project,” Waters said. “She has done a phenomenal job as director of Hub City Press, and I expect she will do the same as executive director and publisher. I look forward to seeing what she and her extraordinary staff achieve in the coming years.”
Since its founding by Betsy Teter, John Lane, and Gary Henderson in 1995, Hub City Writers Project’s mission has been cultivating readers and nurturing writers through its independent press, community bookshop, literacy outreach, and diverse literary programming. Hub City Press has published over 100 high caliber literary works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, as well as books of regional history, and is the distributor of Southern Foodways Alliance’s Gravy Quarterly magazine. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Hub City Press books have been widely praised and featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. Hub City Bookshop has twice been named one of the South’s best bookshops by Southern Living, and was named 2019 Bookshop of the Year by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance.
Every other year, Hub City Press and the South Carolina Arts Commission are partners in 
Good morning! 
Stephanie Powell Watts, was the judge of the biennial prize. Watts is the author of the novel, No One Is Coming to Save Us, and a short story collection, We Are Taking Only What We Need, which won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. Her short fiction has been included in two volumes of the Best New Stories from the South anthology and honored with a Pushcart Prize. Born in the foothills of North Carolina, with a PhD from the University of Missouri and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, she now lives with her husband and son in Pennsylvania where she is an associate professor at Lehigh University.