2016 Utah State University Creative Writing Contest Announces
The first place undergraduate art award went to Brady Hunsaker for "Cache."
The Utah State University Creative Writing Contest has named the winners in its 23rd annual competition, recognizing the best creative work by USU students. Open to all USU undergraduate and graduate students from all departments and disciplines, the contest awards top writers of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction, as well as visual artists in painting and photography. Each category received the blind review of three expert judges drawn from the USU and Cache Valley arts community.
The contest this year was notable for the high quality of all the entries.
“It’s the best batch of fiction we’ve ever had,” said Brock Dethier, one of this year’s fiction judges.
Mary Ellen Greenwood, a celebrated Helicon West reader and 2016 poetry judge, said, “Utah State has a wealth of creative talent, seen in the artistic experimentation with diction, imagery, tone, phrasing, and theme.”
Each spring, the USU Creative Writing Contest publishes the winners in Scribendi, a literary magazine dedicated to the recognition of exemplary writing and artwork done by the USU student body.
This year’s winners will get the chance to share that work on the magazine’s release date, April 28, when they will also give a reading at Helicon West.
“It’s always a great, festive night when the contest winners read at Helicon,” said the contest director Charles Waugh. “It’s a time to celebrate not only the winning work selected by the judges, but also our whole, vibrant writing community here at USU and in Cache Valley.”
The April 28th reading of Scribendi at Helicon West will be held on the USU campus in Merrill-Cazier Library, Room 101.
2016 USU Creative Writing Contest Winners
Undergraduate
Fiction
First Place
Stacie Denetsosie, “Reservation State of Mind”
Second Place
Jordan Floyd, “The Wind Cries Mary”
Third Place
Meili Stokes, “And Thus the Hunters”
Poetry
First Place
Stacie Denetsosie, “Spitting Seeds,” “Peaked” and “Stoic”
Second Place
Mason Lenches-Jhamb, “Elegy for Pa-pau and Ohio,” The day you went to jail” and “Pearls”
Third Place
Alyssa Quinn, “The Color White as a Social Construct,” “Dilemma” and “The Speaker and the I”
Creative Nonfiction
First Place
Shaun Anderson, “A Gay Mormon’s Guide to Navigating the Spiritual Fall”
Second Place
Jeannie Woller, “First Itch” and “Intense Garage Fire Kills a Sandy Father”
Third Place
Sophie Buckner, “Do You Think I’m Pretty?”
Art
First Place
Brady Hunsaker, “Cache”
Second Place
Emily Feuz, “Anxiety”
Third Place
Michelle W. Jones, GROOVE
Honorable Mention
Ayla Lopez , “Sunflower”; Michelle W. Jones, “Shadows”; Christopher Davis, “Mushrooms”; Lydia Tullis, bowl with holes and plugs; Emily Feuz, “Unconditional”; McKenzie Lowry, “Wild,” “Inner Workings,” “A Tribute”; Brady Hunsaker, “Purple Mountain,” “Clarity”
Graduate
Poetry
First Place
Terysa Dyer, “On the Noises in the Office, Late Nights,” “‘Census: Utah has youngest newlyweds’—Deseret News” and “Seasonal Fruit”
Second Place
Chloe Hanson, “Labor,” “Resurrection” and “Pompeii”
Third Place
McKenzie Livingston, “Surgery” and “in lieu of flowers”
Creative Nonfiction
First Place
Chloe Hanson, “Bad Habits”
Second Place
Nathan Hankes, “Another Out”
Third Place
Terysa Dyer, “Apology”
Art
First Place
Jolynne Berrett, “Crab bowl”
Related links
Writer and Contact: Charles Waugh, 797-3481, charles.waugh@usu.edu
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