Decaturite Wins Fiction Prize

Thomas Mullen of Decatur was awarded the Townsend Prize for Fiction on Thursday night.

Mullen was honored for his second novel, The Many Lives of the Firefly Brothers, which was published by Random House.

Mullen's website says the novel "tells the mythic tale of Depression-era bank robbing brothers who, if the stories can be believed, keep coming back to life the mornings after they're shot dead."

His first novel was The Last Town on Earth, set in Washington State during World War I. He recently published The Revisionists, which is set in contemporary Washington, D.C.

The award and a $2,000 check was presented during a ceremony at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

The Townsend Prize is sponsored by Georgia Perimeter College and the Decatur-based Georgia Center for the Book. The Center for the Book website says "the Townsend Prize for fiction is awarded every other year to the Georgia writer judged to have produced the best work of fiction or short stories in the previous two years. It was created in 1981 in honor of the founding editor of Atlanta magazine, Jim Townsend."

Other Townsend nominees from Decatur were and Josh Russell.

The other finalists for the 2012 Townsend Prize for Fiction were Daniel Black for Perfect Peace, St Martin’s Press; Lynn Cullen for Reign Of Madness, G.P. Putnam’s Sons; Ann Hite for Ghost On Black Mountain, Gallery Books; Joshilyn Jackson for Backseat Saints, Grand Central Publishing; Collin Kelley for Remain In Light, Vanilla Heart Publishing; Andrew Plattner for A Marriage Of Convenience, BkMk Press, University of Missouri-Kansas City; and Joseph Skibell for A Curable Romantic, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.