SBWC 2009 National Writing Contest
Hearty thanks go to our early-round judges, who chose the finalists, and to our final judges: novelist Ron McLarty, author of The Memory of Running and two other bestselling novels, who chose our Fiction and Grand Prize winners; Lou Cannon, longtime Washington Post reporter and columnist and the author of more than a dozen nonfiction books, including five on President Reagan, who chose our nonfiction winner; and the award-winning poet Dorianne Laux, whose latest book is Facts About the Moon, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.
Winners
Grand Prize Winner
Thomas M. Atkinson of Anderson Township, OH
“Dancing Turtle”
Ron McLarty’s comments: “A girl damaged at birth, struggling to form words, invites us into an inner life that is both painful and glorious. At the Appalachian Festival she reveals herself with a phrase I will never forget— ‘I can hear your heart.’ And in this beautiful and evocative story the author reaches into the reader's heart.”
Fiction Winner
Tracy DeBrincat of Los Angeles, CA
“Buckaroo Proper”
What Ron McLarty said about “Buckaroo Proper”: “This piece deals with loss, confusion and perhaps even redemption. It is told with humor never veering into the maudlin. There is a sadness to Bobby's story but not a debilitating sadness. He can whisper his thoughts clearly and we appreciate this common human journey.”
Nonfiction Winner
Judith Groudine Finkel of Houston, TX
“Lost Again”
Lou Cannon’s comments: “The most compelling article in my opinion, and therefore the winner is “Lost Again,” by a woman at once Chinese and Jewish who has suffered the loss of multiple parents. This is a haunting memoir with an inner light. The writer is to be commended for avoiding sentimentality. By exercising tight control of her material, the writer allows her persistent memories to tell the story with a minimum of embellishment. This story has an evocative ending as well.” Judith’s latest novel, Texas Justice, is available on Amazon.com
Nonfiction Honorable Mention
Jo Ann Barefoot of Westerville, OH
“Wolfhunt”
Lou Cannon’s comments: “Honorable mention goes to “Wolfhunt,” a tautly written piece about aerial tracking of wolves (to photograph them). The writer has a fine eye for detail, such as the tracks that different animals make in the snow as seen from a Piper Cub. There are nice metaphors, too, my favorite being ‘sourdough hotcakes, garnished with...wolf stories.’ It’s good journalism laced with personal insights.”
Poetry Winner
Ximena T. Ames of Nipomo, CA
For her poems titled “Mamma,” “Our Daughter,” “Dreams,” Aging” and “Wild Poppies”
Dorianne Laux’s comments: “The subtle precision and spirit of these poems sang out from the page. This is a poet with the heart and eye for the extraordinary inside the everyday, ordinary human life, and the potential to develop into a poet worth listening to. Congratulations to all the finalists for their good hard work.”
The grand prize winner receives a full-tuition scholarship to the June 2010 Santa Barbara Writers Conference and the opportunity to have lunch with a top agent during the conference. Winners in the Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry categories each will receive a full-tuition scholarship to the June 2010 conference.
Finalists
Fiction Finalists
Ron’s comments: “All of the finalists, fiction and nonfiction were, in my opinion, absolutely top drawer. In fact I feel new hope for the future of the written word.”
J.I. Wells of Cottonwood, AZ
“God’s Will in Salzburg”
John J. White of Merritt Island, FL
“The Foxhole”
Desiree Dighton of Muncie, IN
“MIA”
Marian Szczepanski of Houston, TX
An excerpt from her novel, “Playing St. Barbara”
Nonfiction Finalists
Lou says: “This was an excellent group of essays, all but one of them focused on seminal experiences in the lives of the writers. Most of these pieces look inward and are self-reflective. I sense that for many of these writers these stories are part of a larger whole that will be examined in other articles or literary forms.”
Deborah Milstein of Brookline, MA
“A Yiddish Vocabulary,” an excerpt from her memoir
Claudia Chotzen of Santa Barbara, CA
“White in a Black World” (memoir)
Jim Ruland of San Deigo, CA
“You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory”
Pat Fagan of Newburgh, IN
“Buffalo Bill, Mob Kings, A Chin Named Moose, The ’56 Yankees (and other sure-enough men and ne’er-do-wells who raised me” (memoir)
Poetry Finalists
Violet of Santa Barbara
“The Bombadier,” “Life’s Living Well,” “The Milky Way Concealed in Flesh,” “My Hearing Aid/Last Rights,” “The River/Untitled”
Henrietta Sparks of Carpinteria, CA
“A Soldier’s Heart,” “Getting Over It,” “Marriage Suite,” “Renewal,” “I Keep My Eyes Straight Ahead”
Matthew Sperling of Toronto, Canada
“Where We Belong,” “The Freedom of the Sun,” “Belly Laugh,” “Our Secret Wings,” “Flying with the Dust”
John Elliott of Goleta, CA
“The Still Life of Poets for Simultaneous Voices,” “The Moons of Saturn,” “Security Check,” “Sometimes the Earth Overwhelms,” “The Passage of River Stones”