Hannah Tennant-Moore on the Longlist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize

Novelist Hannah Tennant-Moore, a graduate of Bennington’s MFA program, was recently named to the long-list for the prestigious PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for her debut novel Wreck and Order. The PEN/Bingham prize award is awarded annually to “exceptionally talented fiction writers whose debut work—a novel or collection of short stories—represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.” Tennant-Moore’s work has also appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, n+1, Tin House, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and in the anthology The Best Buddhist Writing.

Readers of the enthralling Wreck and Order follow on the trail of the protagonist Elsie’s candid and dysphoric journey to self-discovery. Elsie travels across the globe and jumps from relationship to relationship, each in a conscious attempt to better understand her spiritual existence. The author candidly portrays the complexities of young womanhood, exploring typically taboo themes from a female perspective.

In an interview with Literary Bennington last year, Tennant-Moore revealed that she is working on a second novel. She states that the book is “very different from Wreck and Order” and that she is currently immersing herself in the research. 

Two other Bennington authors have been also longlisted for prizes from PEN: Safiya Sinclair '10 for the PEN/Open Book Award, and MFA faculty member Susan Cheever for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction. 

By Amy McMahon '19