© 2026 WFAE

Mailing Address:
WFAE 90.7
P.O. Box 896890
Charlotte, NC 28289-6890
Tax ID: 56-1803808
90.7 Charlotte 93.7 Southern Pines 90.3 Hickory 106.1 Laurinburg
Donate
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Winston-Salem author Virginia Evans wins Women's Prize for Fiction

88.5 WFDD - Public Radio For The Piedmont | By Neal Charnoff
Published June 12, 2026 at 12:42 PM EDT
Virginia Evans, winner of The Women's Prize for Fiction, poses for a photograph at the 2026 Women's Prize Trust Awards Ceremony in London.
Kin Cheung
/
AP
Virginia Evans, winner of The Women's Prize for Fiction, poses for a photograph at the 2026 Women's Prize Trust Summer Party & Awards Ceremony in London, Thursday, June 11, 2026.

The Women’s Prize Trust has awarded this year’s fiction prize to Winston-Salem-based author Virginia Evans for her debut novel, The Correspondent.

It tells the story of a divorced woman in her 70s through her letters to friends, family and real-life authors.

A graduate of James Madison University, Evans obtained a master’s of philosophy in creative writing at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, before settling in Winston-Salem with her family.

The Women’s Prize Trust is a U.K.-based charity that champions women writers.

The Correspondent has been on the New York Times Best Seller list for 30 weeks.
 
Neal Charnoff
Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.
See stories by Neal Charnoff