By Browning Brooks

FSU Communications Group

Monifa Love, a Florida State University doctoral student in English, is the first woman to win the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award for creative writing.

Love is the first recipient from FSU.

"This was an excellent 40th birthday present," she said. "Zora Neale Hurston has influenced my anthropological and literary study."

Love won the competition for her novel-in-progress, "Down Came the Rain," a story about fathers and daughters.

"Monifa is an exceptional person, and she writes incredible poetry and stories," said English Professor Bruce Bickley, director of the FSU Honors and Scholars Program.

Love earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology, with honors, from Princeton University. In 1991, she won the McKnight fellowship, given to African Americans seeking doctorates.

Lotus Press published a volume of Love's poetry, "Provisions," in 1989. Her writing also has appeared in The American Voice, African American Review, New Letters, Essence, The Washington Review, Southern Dawn, Black Network News and other publications. Her work has been anthologized in "Adam of Ife," published in 1992, and "In Search of Color Everywhere," published in 1994.

EXCERPT FROM Down Came the Rain

Angela lay on the floor softly calling her husband's name. She felt another wave of energy surge through her body. Suddenly, she smelled roses. Sweet and musty, fragrant and fetid roses. It was as if all the roses Angela had ever known had been collected in a bouquet for her to savor. She tried to breathe in deeply so that she could relive all the givers, the occasions, and the intimacies. All the backstage admirers. All the single, miniature roses that were Cato's special tokens of love. She wanted to recover all of the spaces in her life that had been filled by the thorny presence of roses. But she could not breathe deeply or quickly enough and her moment of roses passed. It was then that she knew she was dying.

Across my body like some raucous majesty

Everything has come out to see me in my naked

Queenly state. Cardinals and mockingbirds

Perch and serpents take long admiring

Looks and samba on by. Trace

McMillion's horse is shy and does its looking

From a distance. The hills blush azure and I lower

My eyes in modesty. The night train whistles and blows me a

Smoky kiss. All this behind a small cabin in Mecklenburg

Where a weary husband and hungry children

Sleep. This is my luxury. Flush moments when I take shelter

In the forgery of evening. (published in International Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 2)