Georgia author Denene Millner says winning top literary prize 'gives you wings'

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Denene Millner won the The Atlanta Writers Club-Georgia Writers Museum Townsend Prize for Fiction on April 16, 2025.

Credit: The Atlanta Writers Club / Georgia Writers Museum

The weekend before Denene Millner took home one of Georgia’s top literary awards, she was, in her own words, “feeling a way” about herself.

The Atlanta writer penned One Blood an epic 432-page novel lauded by readers and reviewers after its release in September 2023.

Since then, it’s been published in seven countries outside the U.S.

Still, Millner told an audience assembled for the Townsend Prize award ceremony, “I had so many doubts.”

Those vanished when a friend and fellow writer, Karen Good Marable, came to her house, opened One Blood to some random pages and started reading her words aloud to her.

Millner said Good Marable concluded with an emphatic compliment.

"'You a bad...'" Millner quoted, leaving her friend's final word unsaid, letting listeners fill it in.

Millner relayed that story last week at the ceremony as a way of acknowledging the validation she’s received for her novel, which traces four generations of Black mothers, their trials and secrets.

And the Townsend Prize is some heavy validation.

The award has been given every two years since 1981 and recognizes an outstanding novel or short story collection written and published while the author lived in Georgia.

It’s named for Jim Townsend, founding editor of Atlanta Magazine, and its past winners include Alice Walker (The Color Purple) and Terry Kay (Valley of the Light).

“There’s something about people recognizing your work that just gives you wings,” Millner said.

Perhaps literary validation strikes close to her heart because One Blood is both fictional and personal.

“This book is a figment of my imagination,” she told GPB in 2024.  “But it is very much rooted in all the things that I ever wanted to know about my own mother.”

Millner is adopted — and adoption figures prominently in One Blood.

In her Townsend Prize acceptance speech at the Callenwolde Fine Arts Center in Atlanta, she paid tribute to her mother, Betty Millner, who died when the younger Millner was 34.

She also thanked her family, friends, agent, publisher and the award’s presenting institutions, the Atlanta Writer’s Club and the Georgia Writer’s Museum.

The prize selection process involved 50 nominated books, 44 of which met the award’s criteria. Seven in-state judges read all 44 of those books and then nominated 10 finalists. A panel of four out-of-state readers then read those 10 books and chose One Blood.

All 10 finalists were at the award dinner gala, which Atlanta Writer’s Club executive director George Weinstein described as a celebration Georgia’s literary future.

“The next Alice Walker is writing her great work right now,” Weinstein said. “The next Terry Kay is out there working right now.  It’s a wonderful time to be in Georgia, working with writers and helping them succeed.”

All 10 finalists were:

• Denene Millner, One Blood (Forge Books)
• Chika Unigwe, The Middle Daughter (Dzanc Books)
• Anissa Gray, Life and Other Love Songs (Berkley)
• Julia Franks, The Say So (Hub City Press)
• Ra’Niqua Lee, For What Ails You (ELJ Editions)
• John M. Williams, End Times (Sartoris Literary Group)
• Gordon Johnston, Seven Islands of the Ocmulgee: River Stories (Mercer U Press)
• Kimberly Brock, The Fabled Earth (Harper Muse)
• Peter Selgin, A Boy’s Guide to Outer Space (Regal House Publishing)
• Barbara Tucker, Lying In (Colorful Crow Publishing)

In addition to being a prolific writer and publisher, Millner has appeared on many television shows, including as co-host of GPB’s A Seat at the Table, and on many podcasts, including as host of GPB’s Speakeasy with Denene.