Fiction. The second winner in the third annual Tartt Fiction Contest, this irresistible collection of stories offers a humorous and sympathetic look at Black culture in America, much of which is centered on church and love. Manley's take on mixed race marriage is also immensely touching. She has a gift for winding humor and tragedy into a tight ball that hits a home-run each time. "Carol Manley's collection of stories, CHURCH BOOTY, is full of believers caught up in lives whose particularities are wildly funny and heartbreakingly sad and challenge any coherent cosmic explanation. In Manley's masterful hands, all of this adds up to not only a riveting read, but also the bona fide cosmic coherence of art"--Robert Olen Butler.