Ashley Leigh Bourne Prize for Fiction

Ploughshares is pleased to present Kiley Reid with the second annual Ashley Leigh Bourne Prize for Fiction for her short story “George Washington’s Teeth,” which appeared in the Fall 2019 issue, edited by Editor-in-chief Ladette Randolph. The $2,500 prize, sponsored by longtime patron Hunter C. Bourne III and selected by our editors, honors a short story published in the journal in the previous year.

In “George Washington’s Teeth,” Reid explores the way race, as experienced in childhood, reverberates throughout adulthood. For teacher Claire Korto, that moment was a summer spent under suspicion at a “white-girl” camp after fellow camper Heather Pacey wouldn’t name which black girl she saw stealing. The narrative pivots on the way a child’s hurt and anger—suffered decades ago when blackness was equated to guilt, and innocence was fractured—smart well into adulthood. These feelings smart anew when Heather walks into Claire’s classroom years later, fearing the emotional toll the truth about George Washington’s teeth is taking on her daughter. Reid confronts the white fear of race seen in Heather’s plastered-on smile and limited understanding of how “completely deplorable” the treatment of black people has been, and in her squirming discomfort and desire for her daughter, and herself, to be excused from the conversation. “George Washington’s Teeth” grants no pardons.

Reid, who currently lives in Philadelphia, is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was the recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, Playboy, December, New South, Lumina, and other outlets. Her New York Times bestselling debut novel, Such a Fun Age (Putnam, 2019), is currently in development by Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Productions and Sight Unseen Pictures.

What inspired “George Washington’s Teeth”?

I had just left New York and my job as a receptionist and I’d moved to Arkansas to focus on writing. There, I had part-time jobs and more time to research the things that interested me, and within the first few weeks, I learned that George Washington’s teeth were not made of wood as I’d learned as a child. Middle school is a place where long histories of oppression and racism come to the forefront, whether we’d like them to or not, and I was inspired by the idea of this topic being taught in school while also being used as a calculated move in an exchange.

What did you discover or grapple with while writing the story?
I’ve now taught undergraduate writing classes, but when I wrote the story, I hadn’t been a teacher or come across conversations like the one Claire and Heather have. Luckily, I have many friends who are teachers, and so I interviewed them about what they would do in a situation like this one. I was happy that they all came back with different answers, depending on their personalities, the policies of the schools they worked in, and the states they lived in. And it’s always a great thing when you do your research and find out that you have more creative freedom to interpret an interaction.

How does this story fit with the rest of your work?
So much of my work focuses around the question of Can and do we really change over time? Like my other work, there’s no lack of dialogue or plot, and there are conversations that seem very low stakes yet still highly awkward and important. And I definitely gravitate toward female characters, particularly how childcare and education is often foisted upon them, and how this affects how they relate to themselves and others.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on the film adaptation of my first novel, Such a Fun Age, which is very exciting. And I’m slowly starting to craft novel number two, which, at this point, means mostly reading, writing, and taking notes.