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The Execution of Richard Sturgis, As Told by His Son, Colin

Tony Rogers

Winner Nilsen Prize for a First Novel
Publication: Spring 2013
Pages: 200

The Execution Of Richard Sturgis, As Told By His Son, Colin is the story of a rowdy, complex family man and his impressionable son, Colin. When a college student is raped and murdered and his body thrown into the Missouri River, Richard Sturgis and two small town troublemakers are arrested. Sturgis is tried and convicted, while the other two are set free. Colin, deeply scarred by the trial and the shame of enduring his teenage years known as the son of a murderer, doesn’t believe his father is guilty but isn’t sure he is innocent, setting up a lifelong battle within Colin which compels him twenty years later to seek the truth about the murder and about his father.

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Tony Rogers graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude from Yale and received a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He has practiced law on Wall Street, played jazz guitar professionally, and directed a veterans’ hospital. His literary awards include the Writer’s Voice Capricorn Award for a collection of short stories, first runner-up and two-time finalist in the Texas Review Press novella con­test, and semi-finalist in the Quarterly West novella contest. His work has been published in journals such as Pleiades, Thema, North Dakota Quarterly, Worcester Review, the Boston Globe Magazine, and many others. The Execution of Richard Sturgis, As Told by His Son, Colin, is the winner of the inaugural Dorothy and Wedel Nilsen Prize for a First Novel, an annual, national competition open to U.S. residents with a completed manuscript in English who have not yet published a full-length fiction novel or novella. Rogers lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife Tamara.