It was my privilege in Spring '07 to be asked by Elizabeth Richebourg Rea to document the celebration of the 20th Anniversary of The Rea Award for the Short Story. The event was highlighted with remarks by Cynthia Ozick, the very first winner in 1986, and capped off with a closing address by John Updike the 2006 winner. Especially gratifying for me was the opportunity to create portraits of all ten of the previous winners who were able to attend this once-in-a-lifetime gathering that, in the words of Ozick, was like one of those early "salon writer gatherings ... that will never happen again."
The evening indeed was a cultural high-water mark and transpired at New York's Symphony Space. The host, Ann Beattie, first introduced the celebrated actor, Lois Smith, who read "The Shawl", Ozick's moving story of the Holocaust. Following, came Deborah Eisenberg, Richard Ford, Joyce Carol Oates, Grace Paley, Tobias Wolf, John Edgar Wideman, & Joy Williams, each voicing hand-picked selections from their own body of work. The culmination was actor Campbell Scott's reading of "The Orphaned Swimming Pool" by the acclaimed John Updike who gave a very moving speech regarding the current state of the arts and, in particular, the lack of arts funding in the country.
In this era of embarrasingly diminished government funding for the arts, Elizabeth Rea should be congratulated heartily for continuing the tradition of this prestigious award started by her late husband, Michael M. Rea.
