Whiting Writers Award;

Pushcart Prize;

Bakeless Prize;

National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant;

Notable Mention in Best American Short Stories for “Arsonists”;

Thomas D. and Lily Chaffin Award for Appalachian Literature;

Brenda Ueland Fiction Prize;

Finalist for the 2008 Washington State Book Award, Strange As This Weather Has Been;

Finalist for the 2008 Orion Book Award, Strange As This Weather Has Been;

2007 Weatherford Prize for best fiction/poetry about Appalachia, Strange As This Weather Has Been;

Plattner Award for Nonfiction;

Doris Roberts/William Goyen Fellowship in Fiction, the Christopher Isherwood
Foundation;

Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship;

Julia Peterkin Prize;

West Virginia Commission on the Arts Fellowship;

Glasgow Prize for Given Ground;

First Place, New Millennium Writings, Creative Nonfiction;

Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship