Upper School English teacher Mario Chard was named a 2019 Georgia Author of the Year.

Mario was recognized in the Poetry Full-Length Book category for his recently-published book, Land of Fire.

The accolade was announced at the 55th annual Georgia Author of the Year Awards, organized by the Georgia Writers Association. For the 2019 awards, more than 110 authors and their published works were nominated in 14 categories.

First given in 1964, the awards recognize commercially published authors from Georgia. Previous notable winners include President Jimmy Carter for his essay collections The Virtues of Aging (1998) and Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis (2005) and Rep. John Lewis for his memoir Walking with the Wind (1998).

Listen to Mario reading one of his poems below: