Professor Stacy Morgan and Yvonne Wells were recently awarded the 2021 Anne B. and James B. McMillan Prize for their forthcoming book Folk Art with a Difference: The Story Quilts of Yvonne Wells. This prize has been awarded annually since 1995 to the manuscript chosen as “Most Deserving in Alabama or Southern History or Culture” by The University of Alabama Press Faculty Editorial Board, and which has been accepted for publication in the prior calendar year.
The book chronicles Wells’s decades-long career as a quilt artist through a combination of biography, social history, art historical analysis, and interview material with Wells and many of the figures connected to her artistic career. It also will feature a detailed chronology, an inventory of all of her known quilts, and an extensive selection of color photographs of the quilts paired with the artist’s accompanying stories. The University of Alabama Press expects to publish the book in 2023.