USU’s Creative Writing Contest has named the winners in its 29th 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 drawing, painting, and photography. Each category received the blind review of expert judges drawn from the USU and Cache Valley arts community.
Fiction judge Alicia Quinn selected Grace Ashby’s “The Woodworker’s Heart” for the undergraduate fiction winner. Alicia writes, “In ‘The Woodworker’s Heart,’ the story of a recently widowed woodworker, Grace employs fabulism to great effect, crafting a magical, tender, and richly imagined tale about grief, art, and what we risk when we love another person.”
“Toothsome,” written by graduate student Marie Skinner, was chosen as the graduate fiction winner. Alicia writes, “’Toothsome’ is a tale for our time, grappling with issues of appropriation and gendered power dynamics, and set against the backdrop of a global pandemic that has become mundane, routine; yet the story itself is anything but routine, as Marie populates it with teeth that turn into bones, a pecan pie that eats you back, and a narrator whose love of wordplay, greasy spoons, and the poetry of Christina Rossetti endear her to the reader from the first sentences.” On her winning story, Marie reflects, “’Toothsome’ began with a three-minute writing exercise; the first part I wrote is in the middle of the story. I loved the scene, so I built up the rest of the story around it, and it's actually quite an old story, but it's always been missing something. The way the pandemic changed social interactions and provided new contexts for certain types of artists to branch out gave me the pieces I needed to pull the story together. In a way, this short story took me years to write. That's why writing habits, I think, are so important.”
Judge Russ Winn selected “Mo(u)rning Song” by Vinn McBride for the undergraduate nonfiction winner. Russ writes, “The bard said no legacy is as rich as honesty, and ‘Mo(u)rning Song’ by Vinn McBride explores a difficult legacy in an honest and beautiful way.”
Marie Skinner’s essay “What I Make Myself” was chosen as the graduate nonfiction winner. “A person’s journey into their own identity often finds them inventing better things in the wake of a life that’s been lived,” notes Russ. “‘What I Make Myself’ weaves not only a beautiful tale from this journey, it also produces a beautiful invention.”
Poetry judge Mary Ellen Greenwood selected Vinn McBride’s collection of poems for the undergraduate poetry winner. “What makes this collection remarkable,” Mary Ellen says, “is its balance between the concrete and the abstract, leading to innovative connections between the physical, psychological, and emotional.” Vinn reflects on both winning pieces: “My writing is heavily influenced by the complexities of interpersonal dynamics and grief, with a heavy dose of nature theming. I'm a big believer that where you live fundamentally shapes you as a person, so my poems and my nonfiction the past few years have all been focused around the physical and emotional home, and what those mean to me. ‘Mo(u)rning Song,’ the nonfiction piece, is written to emulate the style found in Kiese Laymon's memoir ‘Heavy,’ while my poetry is more scattered in its inspirations. Love, home, and death have been the big topics for me recently, and I'm glad I got to share these with people.” Taylor Franson was named graduate poetry winner for her selected poems. On her winning poem, Taylor reflects, “The inspiration for ‘A List Things that Happen to a Body’ comes from my experience as an athlete and a woman and how so much of my existence centers on the things that happen to, or that I do with my body. This poem particularly centers on the beginnings of my battle with disordered eating, and some of things I’ve done to my own body during that battle.” Of Taylor’s winning poems, Mary Ellen notes, “The vulnerability of these pieces is both authentic and powerful, and the vulnerability pairs wonderfully with vivid sophisticated language and fresh metaphors.”
This is the sixth year the contest has partnered with Sink Hollow, USU’s international undergraduate literary journal. The winning entries will be published next month in a special contest issue, giving this work an international audience.
The winners will also get the chance to share their work locally on April 28th, when they will read at Helicon West. “The Helicon reading of the contest winners’ work is always one of the best nights of the year on campus,” said contest director, Charles Waugh. “We get to celebrate not only the winning work, but also our whole, vibrant writing community here at USU and in Cache Valley.”
The Helicon West reading of the contest winning work will be held April 28th at USU in Library 101 at 7 p.m. As always, Helicon West is free, uncensored, open to the public, and will include an open mic session.
First: Grace Ashby, “Spring on the Brain”
Second: Madalynn Wight, "The Consequence of Being Human"
Third: Ana Cristina, “Call of Duty: Walking Home”
Honorable Mention: Grace Ashby, “River in the Woods,” “Huntress,” “Fall in Green Canyon,” “Snake Hands,” “Queen of the Woods,” and “Shade Tree”
Honorable Mention: Noelani Hadfield, “Wistful Blues”
First: Grace Ashby, “The Woodworker's Heart”
Second: Wayson Foy, “Deus Ex Machina”
Third: Hannah Lee, “Däremellan”
First: Marie Skinner, “Toothsome”
Second: Christopher Nicholson, “Do Robots Dream of Electric Horse Debugger?”
Third: Madeline Thomas, "Blackberry Magic"
First: Vinn McBride, “Mo(u)rning Song”
Second: Basil Payne, “Chicken Coop”
Third: Eden Borden, "Letting In The Goddess"
First: Marie Skinner, “What I Make My Self”
Second: Bonnie Reeder, “Touching”
Third: Karalee Riddle, “Goodbye, my Birds”
First: Vinn McBride, “Baby Kitten McBride (?-July 24, 2021),” “A Short Memoir of Two Houses,” and “Pining For Homework”
Second: Mason Goodrich, "construction work," "fresh cut distress"
Third: Joe Rawle, “Soft Bitched Brain, Humor Me”
First: Taylor Franson, “A List of Thing That Happen to a Body,” “imposter syndrome,” and “gravity”
Second: Karalee Riddle, “Mismatched”
Third: Bonnie Reeder, “The Age of a Tree, Butterfly Kiss, Phoebe”
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