BOONE—John Stone, a junior English major at Appalachian State University, has received a Truman Capote Literary Trust Scholarship in Creative Writing for the 2007-08 academic year.

Stone is the son of Rick and Sandy Stone of Sanford.

The scholarship was established in 1995 with a $35,000 gift from the Capote Literary Trust to create an endowed fund to support the creative writing program at Appalachian. Thanks to the trust’s continued support of the endowment, a $1,950 scholarship was awarded to Stone.

Stone entered two short stories for the competition that was judged by Nancy Packer, professor emeritus of creative writing and former program director at Stanford University.

“Stone writes like a fiction writer, so that the reader has that willing suspension of disbelief,” Packer said of his work. She said that in Stone’s story “An Intumescent Heart,” that “the crazy, angry father came alive on the page and so did the narrator with his anomie and dysfunction. The writing is concrete and imagistic and places the reader firmly in the story. The story itself-of the son and the father-is moving and persuasive.”

Stone and other students who have received creative writing scholarships will read from their work during Research and Creative Endeavors Day Thursday, April 19, from 4-5 p.m. in Plemmons Student Union’s Calloway Peak Room.

Cullen Crawford was named runner up for a short story and play. “Crawford’s submissions are extraordinarily inventive and amusing, smoothly written and quite well constructed,” Packer said. Crawford is a senior English major from Fuquay-Varina.

The Truman Capote Literary Trust Scholarship in Creative Writing competition is open to rising or continuing juniors and seniors planning to major in English with a concentration in creative writing, or who are pursuing a B.S. degree in teaching secondary English and have taken or are taking creative writing courses.

The competition alternates between poetry and prose. Next year’s competition will be in poetry.

In addition to offering a concentration in creative writing for English majors, the Creative Writing Program at Appalachian offers writing competitions for the Capote Scholarship, the Marian Coe Scholarship and the John Foster West Scholarship, and sponsors the Visiting Writers Series which brings novelists and poets to campus for readings.

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