And the winner is… Claudia Emerson.

The Pulitzer board announced today that the English professor of the University of Mary Washington and Fredericksburg resident has won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

The 49 year old woman won the prestigious award for a 54 pages collection of poetry called “Late Wife.”

The story behind the book is truly interesting. Claudia Emerson, in a period of three years, took her handwritten letters reflecting on her failed marriage of 19 years and her blossoming relationship with her second husband and taped them to the walls of her home and office.

Claudia Emerson will receive a cash award of $10,000 given by Columbia University on the recommendation of the 18-member Pulitzer board.

Emerson is a graduate of the University of Virginia and earned a master”s degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She began her full-time career at Mary Washington in 1998 as a composition and creative-writing professor in the department of English, Linguistics and Speech.

You can get the book at Amazon: Late Wife: Poems (Southern Messenger Poets Series)