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.”
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.”
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”