Congratulations to Writing Contest Winners!

This past Friday, April 27th, the English department gathered to celebrate the winners of the annual department writing contest. To get a sense of the writing that is being produced in this department we asked two of the winners to share excerpts from their award-winning pieces.

André Katkov is a second-year PhD student and he won first place in the Nancy Potter Poetry Contest. His first-place collection included the short poem “The Politician.”

The Politician
 
Caterpillar skin
between his teeth.
 
There will be
no butterflies
this Spring.
 
You can check out more of his poetry and his artwork at his website Drey Sleeps.
 
Heather J. Macpherson is a first-year PhD student and she won first place in the Creative Non-Fiction Contest. Her first-place essay, “Grace and Respect for the Infirm and Desired,” as a whole is in twenty-seven sections that move between the 1980’s and the 1990’s, where relationships intersect with the AIDS epidemic. Below is an excerpt:
 
“V.
My first encounter with AIDS was a highway billboard in New Haven, Connecticut. I’m not sure how old I was. A skeleton in a coffin, black background with a slogan hovering above the remains. I don’t remember what it said.”
 
You can follow her writing at Heather J. Macpherson.
 
Congratulations to all the winners!
The Nancy Potter Short Story Contest Winners

First Place: Bruce Kilstein – “The Blues Is A Rusty Nail
Second Place: Audrey T. Heffers – “Mirror’s Veil

The Nancy Potter Poetry Contest Winners
First Place: André Katkov – “The Politician
Second Place: Michael Landreth – “A Prayer for Winona, MS
Third Place: Audrey T. Heffers – “I, Demeter and You, Persephone”

Creative Non-Fiction Contest Winners
First Place: Heather J. MacPherson – “Grace and Respect for the Infirm and Desired”
Second Place: Michael Landreth – “Currency, Warmth”
Third Place: Danielle Sanfilippo – “‘It’s the Way I Am’: Spock as My Asperger’s Guardian”

Critical Essay Contest Winners
First Place: Susan Chakmakian – “French, English, or Franglais?: Henry V and Translation”
Second Place: Molly Volanth Hall – “Writing Home at War on the Western Front: The Dark Ecologies of Jones, Sassoon, and Plowman
Third Place: Catherine Winters – “Seeing is Believing: The Visual Vocabulary of Contemporary American Fiction”