Paul Ruffin Creative Writing Award

This award was established in memory of Paul Ruffin, by D.C. Berry, to provide financial assistance to selected students who are full-time graduate students at SHSU. D.C. Berry earned a BS from Bob Jones University and another from Delta State. He spent 1967 and 1968 in Vietnam, and then earned a Ph.D. in English at the University of Tennessee in 1972. He taught at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers, Hattiesburg. where for years he was Poet in Residence. There he published hundreds of poems, and three times won the Excellence in Teaching Award, while being honored as the Charles W. Moorman Distinguished Professor in the Humanities. Berry was a close fiend of Dr. Paul Ruffin for many years, and tells fabulous tales of the years he spent at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg where he shared a house with Ruffin.

Paul Ruffin was born in Millport, Alabama, in 1941. After graduating from Columbus Public Schools, he entered the U.S. Army for a brief tour of duty. After completing his tour. Ruffin enrolled at Mississippi State University (MSU) in Starkville, Mississippi. Ruffin was hired as an English instructor at Mississippi State University. After one year at MSU, he joined the faculty at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville. Texas. Ruffin and his wife Sharon had two children before they divorced in 2006. Paul Ruffin was the Founding Editor of The Texas Review and served as Editor-in-Chief for forty years. He founded Texas Review Press in 1979 and was the director of the Press until his death. In 2009, Ruffin was named Texas State Poet Laureate. He was awarded the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Award for Circling. In addition to several books, he had over fifty stories and over 500 poems published in many journals and magazines. His works also appear in various anthologies. Paul Ruffin passed away on April 14, 2016 at the age of 74.