<strong><span class="subhead">New Letters prizes</span></strong></p><p>New Letters magazine, published by the University of Missouri-Kansas City, recently awarded its annual literary prizes. They include $1,500 awards for poetry, essay and fiction categories and publication in the winter 2010 issue.</p><p>The winners: </p><p>&bull;Heather Bell of New York for &ldquo;Aunt Marjorie&rdquo; and other selected poems.</p><p>&bull;Rose Bunch of Florida for her essay &ldquo;Norman Mailer Is Coming to Dinner.&rdquo;</p><p>&bull;Siobh&aacute;n Fallon of California for her story &ldquo;Inside the Break.&rdquo;</p><p>The next literary awards deadline is May 18. For details: <a href="http://www.newletters.org">www.newletters.org</a>.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Kansas connection</span></strong></p><p>The man who gave Chase County, Kan., its name is featured in a new book. </p><p>&ldquo;Spur Up Your Pegasus: Family Letters of Salmon, Kate, and Nettie Chase, 1844&ndash;1873&rdquo; (Kent State University Press) collects letters between Civil War-era anti-slavery politician Salmon P. Chase and his two daughters. </p><p>Chase served as Ohio governor, U.S. senator, Treasury secretary and Supreme Court chief justice. Separated from his family for work, he wrote often to his daughters.</p><p>Some letters address social issues, such as the role of women in 19th-century America. Kate was an unofficial political adviser to her father and a prominent Washington hostess; Nettie was a wife and mother and creator of children&rsquo;s books. </p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Notable nonfiction</span></strong></p><p><strong>&ldquo;Religion was never supposed to provide answers to questions that lay within the reach of human reason. Religion&rsquo;s task, closely allied to that of art, was to help us live creatively, peacefully and even joyfully with realities for which there were no easy explanations.&rdquo;</strong></p><p>From Karen Armstrong&rsquo;s latest, <strong>&ldquo;The Case for God&rdquo; </strong>(411 pages, Alfred A. Knopf, $27.95). The former nun who attracted a loyal following with her 1993 best-seller &ldquo;A History of God&rdquo; has written nearly 20 books on religious themes. Here she responds to the so-called &ldquo;new atheists,&rdquo; a trio of anti-religionists (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens) who surprised the publishing world with their own series of best-selling books.</p><p>Also out recently:</p><p><strong>&ldquo;The Evolution of God&rdquo; </strong>by Robert Wright (567 pages, Little, Brown, $25.99). It addresses a simple question: Is religion poison? Is Islam a religion of war? How about Judaism and Christianity?