Rourks, an assistant professor of English and humanities at Beacon College, was named an assistant fiction editor at storySouth.
“storySouth is a beautiful literary journal known for both being an early innovator in online literary publishing and for helping redefine the realm of Southern literature,” Rourks said. “As a Southern writer, I am very honored to be a part of the team that chooses the fiction that appears in the journal, thus in some small way helping to shape the journal’s aesthetic and thrust.”
Launched in 2001, the magazine exists to showcase the best fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry from writers from the new south with a focus on promising new writers.
Rourks is the author of Moon Trees and Other Orphans, a collection of “grit-lit” short stories set along the Gulf Coast, focusing on themes of desperation, loneliness, and love.
Previously, she served as editor of Rougarou, assistant editor of Louisiana Literature, editor of Warp Journal, and editor of Outside the Lines.
Her fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry has been published widely in outlets such as Juked, SmokeLong Quarterly, TriQuarterly, Tudor Close Anthology, Greensboro Review, Pembroke Magazine, Prairie Schooner, The Kenyon Review, New Rivers Press American Fiction, PANK Magazine, Nailed Magazine, December Magazine, RHINO Poetry and others.
Rourks is the recipient of the St. Lawrence Book Prize, the Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, the Robert Watson Literary Review Prize in Fiction. She was a finalist for the 2017 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction, The Hudson Prize, 2017 Prairie Schooner Book Prize, 2016 Mysterious Press Award, 2015 Philadelphia Stories’ Marguerite McGlinn National Prize for Fiction, 2015 December Magazine Curt Johnson Prose Award, 2013 American Fiction Prize, New Rivers Press, and the 2013 Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival: Short Fiction Award.