Awards give writers prestige
$3,000 given to non-fiction, fiction winners
By Jessica Sanders
Staff Reporter

Jonis Agee’s soothing voice filled the room as she described a teacher’s unusual love affair with a mysterious man named Darwin.

“It seemed Darwin was a lily of the field,” Agee said. “And the rest of us were just weeds grasping for purchase, knocking down anything in our way.”

Agee, a writer and English professor at University of Nebraska at Lincoln, read excerpts from “Acts of Love on Indigo Road” and her unfinished novel at the 2003 Creative Writing Awards ceremony Thursday night.

“As a writer you work alone,” Agee said. “This is the moment where you can see if anyone’s listening.”

Charlotte Hogg, an English professor, said $3,000 in award money was given to 27 student and alumni winners during the ceremony.

Agee said winning a writing contest when she was a young writer was a great boost to her confidence.

“It lets you know that someone’s listening, that you are saying something in a way that is communicating to other people,” Agee said.

Michelle Thompson, a senior English major, said she was excited to win the Siddie Joe Johnson Poetry Award and second place in the Lilla Thomas Award contest.

“I have always enjoyed writing and I’ve been writing for a while,” Thompson said.

Lauren Kelley, a junior English major and winner of the Women’s Wednesday Club Merit Award, said she did not know until the ceremony what she had won.

“I took a creative writing class last semester,” Kelley said. “That’s the only time I’ve written creatively in my life.”

Senior English major Amanda Emerson won the Lorraine Sherley Prize for a writing portfolio and second place in the Kurt Lee Hornbeck Poetry Award contest.

“Its fun to get recognized for your writing and also win money,” Emerson said.

No winners were chosen for the Multimedia Writing Award, the Mortar Board Prize for Literary Criticism and the Graduate Fiction Prize.

“Sometimes we don’t have any entries and sometimes the judge decides the caliber was not what we were hoping for,” Hogg said.

Entries are judged by contest sponsors, faculty, graduate students and volunteers, Hogg said.

Jessica Sanders