From Our Soundbooth | August 14, 2018
2018 Miller Audio Prize Runner-Up in Prose: “Don’t Know Tough” by Eli Cranor
This week, we are so excited to share with you the first of our 2018 Miller Audio Prize Runners-Up. This project, “Don’t Know Tough” by Eli Cranor, was selected as our 2018 Runner-Up in the Prose category. Guest Judge Avery Trufelman shared these thoughts about “Don’t Know Tough”:
“Right away, Cranor’s extraordinary voice draws you in to this dry yet rollicking story, which comes alive as Cranor embodies each new character one by one. A simple yet remarkable tale that lures you in through a series of small details, circling out and out to become a portrait of a young man, a team, a family, and the machismo culture of a whole country.”
Cranor had this to say about his piece:
I have devoted the greater part of my life to football. I scored my first touchdown at nine and went on to play quarterback in college while majoring in English Literature. By twenty-six, I was the head coach of a small, Arkansas high school nestled right at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. During that time, I came face to face with the desperate lives of some of my most at-risk players. These are the boys I picked up before school, took home after practice, bearing witness to the scars and the pain they fought so hard to hide. I wrote “Don’t Know Tough” a year removed from that place. My process for this particular story was similar to surfing; the voice came out in a wave, and I just fought to hang on. Much thanks to Greensboro Review‘s Ben Newgard and Terry Kennedy for smoothing out the rough edges before the story appeared in the GR‘s 103rd edition.
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