Constance Alexander, a writer from Murray, won the 2004 Writers Exchange Contest in fiction for an excerpt from Thirty-One Fat Ladies on a Bus, her novel-in-progress. Sponsored by Poets & Writers, America’s largest nonprofit literary organization, the honor brings with it an all-expenses-paid trip to New York to meet with top literary professionals, including editors, publishers, agents, and prominent writers, and the chance to give a public reading of her work in Manhattan.

Thirty-One Fat Ladies on a Bus, her first novel, started life as a poem and eventually evolved into a one-act play. When neither of those forms could encompass her vision of the characters and the plot, Constance made the transition to fiction.

An award-winning columnist, radio producer, poet, and playwright, Constance has written 17 plays that have been performed around the country and in Scotland. In addition to the novel, she is at work on an opera with composer Jeremy Beck, which received funding from the Kentucky Foundation for Women.

Program 629

Murray playwright, columnist, and independent radio producer Constance Alexander; the “Louisville twang”—a home-grown blend of country, pop, and rock—of Hell’s 1/2 Acre; and a look at Hindman’s annual Appalachian Family Folk Week. (#629)

Program 640

Murray playwright, columnist, and independent radio producer Constance Alexander; the “Louisville twang”—a home-grown blend of country, pop, and rock—of Hell’s 1/2 Acre; and a look at Hindman’s annual Appalachian Family Folk Week. (#640)