 He is notable for an academic scandal within the Southern literary community.His short story collection, "The Bear Bryant Funeral Train", won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction from the University of Georgia Press, but the award was later rescinded and the book recalled after portions of the story were alleged to be plagiarized from an earlier work by Carl Carmer.Vice was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1973 and raised in nearby Northport.