2023 Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest

Prizes: * 1st - $100 * 2nd - $75 * 3rd - $50
(Plus Books & Honorable Mentions)

Guidelines:

· Contest is open only to currently enrolled undergraduate students.

· Eligible students are expected to attend the Festival. Recognition will occur Friday evening, April 7, 2023. (Please do not submit if you cannot attend the festival).

· Submissions must be confirmed by a sponsoring faculty member.

· Each institution is allowed a maximum of 5 (five entries); This includes ECU.

· Each institution is responsible for selecting its contestants

· Submissions are limited to one of three categories: 1) one piece of short fiction (up to 7500 words), or one piece of creative nonfiction (up to 7500 words), or up to three poems (150 lines total).

· Prizes will not be designated by genre, but will be awarded for best writing.

· All entries must be the original work of the student.

· All entries must be neatly typed; please double-space prose entries.

· Entries will not be returned, so keep your originals.

· No identifying marks should be on the manuscript itself, except for the title.

· Provide separate Cover page with contact information: 1) Student’s Name; 2) Student’s email address AND mailing address 3) Faculty Member’s Name & Email address 3) Institution 4) Classification 5) Phone number 6) Title of original work submitted

· Submit work by email to Dr. Jennifer Dorsey at jdorsey@ecok.edu. In the subject line of your email submission, type “Scissortail Undergraduate Contest.”

· Professor Dorsey will screen entries, then an outside judge will judge all entries that meet minimum guidelines.


DEADLINE: Email entries to jdorsey@ecok.edu must be received by Midnight February 19, 2023. There will be no exceptions. Recognition of writers will occur Friday April 7 as part of the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival held at East Central University (April 6 - 8, 2023). Please visit (and subscribe via email) www.ecuscissortail.blogspot.com to receive festival updates. Contact: Ken Hada, khada@ecok.edu (580) 559-5557 for information regarding the Festival


Judge: Dr. Andrew Geyer, whose tenth book is the composite anthology Magic, Mystery, Madness: electric ekphrastics (Angelina River Press 2022). A member of the Texas Institute of Letters and the South Carolina Academy of Authors Literary Hall of Fame, Geyer currently serves as English Department Chair at the University of South Carolina Aiken and as fiction editor for Concho River Review.

18th Annual Scissortail: Featured Authors

ALLISON AMEND was born in Chicago, Illinois, on a day when the Cubs beat the Mets 2-0. In high school, Allison lived for a year with a Spanish family in Barcelona. She attended Stanford University, graduating with honors in Comparative Literature. After college, she lived in Lyon, France on a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship. Allison then attended the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, receiving a Maytag and a Teaching/Writing Fellowship.

Allison’s debut short story collection, Things That Pass for Love (OV/Dzanc Books, 2008) won a bronze Independent Publisher’s award. Stations West, a historical novel, was published by Louisiana State University Press as part of its Yellow Shoe Fiction series in March 2010 and was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Oklahoma Book Award.

Nan A. Talese/Doubleday published her most recent novels A Nearly Perfect Copy and Enchanted Islands.

Allison lives in New York City, where she teaches creative writing at Lehman College in the Bronx and at the Red Earth MFA.

Photo copyright by Erin Patrice O'Brien

MAJOR JACKSON is the author of five books of poetry, including The Absurd Man (2020), Roll Deep (2015), Holding Company (2010), Hoops (2006) and Leaving Saturn (2002), which won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for a first book of poems. His edited volumes include: Best American Poetry 2019, Renga for Obama, and Library of America’s Countee Cullen: Collected Poems.

A recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Major Jackson has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress.

He has published poems and essays in American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, Orion Magazine, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Poetry London, and Zyzzva.

Major Jackson lives in Nashville, Tennessee where he is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review.

OCTAVIO QUINTANILLA is the author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014) and served as the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of San Antonio, TX. His poetry, fiction, translations, and photography have appeared, or are forthcoming, in journals such as The Southampton Review, Salamander, RHINO, Alaska Quarterly Review, Pilgrimage, Green Mountains Review, Southwestern American Literature, The Texas Observer, and Existere: A Journal of Art & Literature. His Frontextos (visual poems) have been published in Poetry Northwest, Texas Review Press, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Midway Journal, The Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, and elsewhere.

Octavio’s visual work has been exhibited in numerous art spaces, including, Southwest School of Art, Presa House Gallery, Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, and Equinox Gallery. He is the recipient of the Nebrija Creadores Scholarship, consisting of a month-long residency at the Instituto Franklin at Alcalá University in Alcalá de Henares, Spain. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas and is the regional editor for Texas Books in Review. Octavio teaches Literature and Creative Writing in the M.A./M.F.A. program at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas.

Website: octavioquintanilla.com

IG: @writeroctavioquintanilla

From the Director – Welcome 2022

It is with great anticipation that I welcome you back to a live, in-person festival! We need to gather together to inspire and to be inspired. This year, we welcome 74 authors to the program, the most ever. Of that number, 15 are new to the festival.

Scissortail Festival has been described in various ways over the years. One of my favorite descriptions is that Scissortail is a “listening” festival. That is, we come together and listen to each other. As you are all-too aware, we are under siege all day long, every day of the week, by a barrage of distractions and interruptions, all designed to reduce us to thoughtless automatons. This festival offers a chance to free our mind and souls from that onslaught, and to hear one another. I know I look forward to hearing as many of you as possible; and more, I look forward to hearing about how each of you hear each other.

On behalf of so many gracious volunteers, outside of ECU, and of many members of the Department of English & Languages, and volunteers from the Department of Art, Media and Communication, student volunteers, and the administration of East Central University – Welcome!

Ken Hada

2022: Schedule of Readings

17th Annual: Scissortail Creative Writing Festival
March 31 - April 2, 2022
East Central University
Ada, Oklahoma

Thursday, March 31

I. 9:30 – 10: 45 Estep Auditorium

Joey Brown: Missouri Southern State University
Feral Love in Skateland
Rilla Askew: University of Oklahoma
rĕk′ə-nĭng
Dave Malone: West Plains, Missouri
Tornado Drills and Hitchhiking Skills

II. 11:00 – 12: 15 Estep Auditorium

Robin Carstensen: Texas A&M – Corpus Christi
Selected New Poems
Chris Murphy: Northeastern State University
from Burning All the Time
Molly Sizer: Lawton, Oklahoma
The World and the Refuge

III. 11:00 - 12:15 Regents Room

Jeffrey Alfier: Torrance, California
The Shadow Field, and other poems
Denise Tolan: San Antonio, Texas
Because You Are Dead, and other flash fiction
Gary Reddin: Duncan, Oklahoma
An Abridged History of American Violence

IV. 11:00 – 12:15 North Lounge

Ron Wallace: Southeastern Oklahoma State U.
from Sanctuary
Leah Chaffins: Cameron University
Mountain Kings & other poems
Clarence Wolfshohl: Toledo, Missouri
Family Resemblance

*** Lunch ***

17th Annual Scissortail: The Poster

 

Winners of the 18th Annual Daryl Fisher Creative Writing Contest

Poetry Winners:

First Place: Vivianna “Morphie” Pflaum, “Life Letters.” Edmond Memorial High School (Ms. Kelly Bristow)
Second Place: Lenna Abouzahr, “Sand Thoughts.” Stillwater High School (Jennifer White)
Third Place: Emily Spotts, “Uncastled.” Lawton High School (Dr. Terence Freeman)

Honorable Mentions:
Katrina Snyder, “Jobless.” Mount Saint Mary’s High School (Ms. Strah)
Billie Parker, “The Lazy Man.” Lawton High School (Dr. Terence Freeman)
Brayden Johnson, “The Modern Child Slave.” Lawton High School (Dr. Terence Freeman)
Jacy Pruitt, “Failure.” Edmond Memorial High School (Ms. Kelly Bristow)
Rachel Van Osdol, “Dolls Aren’t Puppets.” Edmond Memorial High School (Ms. Kelly Bristow)
Elaine Gao, “The Interrupted Serenade.” Jenks High School (Mrs. Lindsey Taylor)
Krisinda Sevenstar, “Her Smile, Her Heart.” Leedey High School (Morgan Lady)
Katelynn Robertson, “Dreaming.” Bixby High School (Jennifer Phenicie)
Yunsu Kim, “After the Fall of Eden.” Norman High School (Sara Doolittle)
Jessiekah Cook, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno?” Weatherford High School (Traci Sanders)

Fiction Winners:

First Place: Emily Runyan. “Set in Clay.” Norman High School. (Instructor: Dr. Sara Doolittle)

Second Place: Elaine Gao. “Coding Van Gogh.” Jenks High School. (Lindsey Taylor)

Third Place: Helena Todd. “Life after Tuesday.” Shawnee High School. (Lynda Thompson)

Honorable Mentions:

Olivia Norman. “Subject 13.” Skiatook High School. (Katrina Morrison)

Mary Ann Livingood. “Winter Suns and Wooden Cats.” Norman High School. (Dr. Sara Doolittle)

Liberty Rogers. “The Realworld.” Dale High School. (Taylor Chesser)

Madelyn Harjo. “Until Sunset.” Shawnee High School. (Lynda Thompson)

Mylee Moore. “Icarus.” Jenks High School. (Emily Stewart)

Camryn Pizano. “Know My Name.“ McAlester High School. (Katie Burgess)

Katelynn Robertson. “The Memory of Snow.” Bixby High School. (Jennifer Phenicie)

Elissa Marks. “The Kitchen Maid and the Sleeping Beauty.” Edmond Memorial High School. (Kelly Bristow)

Macie ‘Ciel’ Moon. “Night of All Things Dark.” Edmond Memorial High School. (Beth Lewis)

Elizabeth Brown. “Hades’ Daughter.” Elmore City-Pernell High School. (Tina Casey)

2022 Scissortail Biographies

Dorothy Alexander is a poet, memoirist, storyteller, author of five poetry collections, two multi-genre memoirs, and two volumes of oral history. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Malpais Review; Sugar Mule Literary Review; Blood & Thunder: Musings on the Art of Medicine; Oklahoma Humanities Journal; Missing Persons, (Beatlick Press of Albuquerque); Weaving the Terrain (Dos Gatos Press of ABQ). She curated poetry readings at the annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Oklahoma for 15 years, and is a recipient of the Carlile Award for Distinguished Service to the Oklahoma literary community. She currently curates a monthly poetry reading at the Santa Fe, NM Community Convention Center under the auspices of the City of Santa Fe Bureau of Tourism. She co-owner with Devey Napier of Village Books Press, Santa Fe, NM. In two other lives, Dorothy was a tornado chaser for the National Weather Service, and then a lawyer and municipal judge for 45 years in Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle.

Jeffrey Alfier was a finalist for the Missouri Laureate Prize in 2021. In 2018, he won the Angela Consolo Manckiewick Poetry Prize, awarded from Lummox Press. In 2014, he won the Kithara Book Prize, judged by Dennis Maloney. Publication credits include Arkansas Review, Atlanta Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Columbia College Literary Review, Copper Nickel, Emerson Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Kestrel, Gargoyle, Hotel Amerika, Los Angeles Review, Louisville Review, The Midwest Quarterly, New York Quarterly, Permafrost, Poetry Ireland Review, South Carolina Review, Southern Poetry Review, Southwestern American Literature, and Texas Review. His latest collection of poems is The Shadow Field (Louisiana Literature Journal & Press, 2020). He is also author of Gone This Long: Southern Poems, The Wolf Yearling, Idyll for a Vanishing River, Fugue for a Desert Mountain, Anthem for Pacific Avenue: California Poems, Southbound Express to Bayhead: New Jersey Poems, The Red Stag at Carrbridge: Scotland Poems, Bleak Music: A Photo and Poetry collaboration with poet Larry D. Thomas, The Storm Petrel: Poems of Ireland. He and his wife, Tobi, are founders of Blue Horse Press and San Pedro River Review, a print publication of poetry and art (since 2009).

Rilla Askew is the author of four novels, a book of stories, and a collection of creative nonfiction. She’s a PEN/Faulkner Finalist and recipient of three Oklahoma Book Awards, two Western Heritage Awards, and the American Book Award for her novel about the Tulsa Race Massace, Fire in Beulah. Her collection of nonfiction, Most American: Notes from a Wounded Place, was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. She received a 2009 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her essays and short fiction have appeared in AGNI, Tin House, World Literature Today, Translatlantica, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at the University of Oklahoma.

17th Annual Scissortail: Featured Authors

LOU BERNEY

Lou Berney is the author of November Road (winner of the Dagger, Hammett, Anthony, Barry, Lefty, and Macavity, and a Washington Post Best Book of 2018), The Long and Faraway Gone (winner of the Edgar, Anthony, Barry, Macavity, and ALA awards), Whiplash River, and Gutshot Straight, all from William Morrow. He’s also written a collection of stories, The Road to Bobby Joe, and his short fiction has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. He teaches in the MFA program at Oklahoma City University.

JENNIFER CASAS GIVHAN

Jennifer Givhan is a Mexican-American and indigenous poet and novelist (author of Trinity Sight and Jubilee), who grew up in the Imperial Valley, a small, border community in the Southern California desert. Her family has ancestral ties to the indigenous peoples of New Mexico and Texas, including Ysleta del Sur and the Tigua Indian peoples of the Ysleta region of El Paso.

Givhan earned her Master’s degree in Fine Arts in Poetry from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina and a Master’s degree in English Literature and Creative Writing at California State University Fullerton. She has been awarded a 2015 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices Fellowship, The Frost Place Latinx Scholarship, a 2020 Southwest Book Award, an Honorable Mention for 2021 The Rudolfo Anaya Best Latino Focused Fiction Book Award category from the International Latino Book Awards Foundation, The 2019 New Ohio Review Poetry Prize chosen by Tyehimba Jess, Cutthroat Journal’s 2018 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize chosen by Patricia Spears Jones, The 2017 Greg Grummer Poetry Prize chosen by Monica Youn, The 2015 Lascaux Review Editors’ Choice Poetry Prize, and The Pinch Poetry Prize chosen by Ada Limón.

Givhan’s poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, Best of the Net, Best New Poets, AGNI, TriQuarterly, Ploughshares, POETRY, Boston Review, Crazyhorse, Blackbird, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, Salon, The Rumpus, and Prairie Schooner, among many others.

ARTHUR SZE

Arthur Sze is a poet, translator, and editor. He is the author of eleven books of poetry, including The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2021); Sight Lines (Copper Canyon, 2019), which won the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry; Compass Rose (Copper Canyon, 2014), a Pulitzer Prize finalist; The Ginkgo Light (Copper Canyon, 2009), selected for the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Book Award in Poetry and a PEN Southwest Book Award; Quipu (Copper Canyon, 2005); The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998 (Copper Canyon, 1998), selected for the Balcones Poetry Prize and an Asian-American Literary Award; and Archipelago (Copper Canyon, 1995), selected for an American Book Award.

His other books include River River (1987), Dazzled (1982), Two Ravens (1976; revised edition, 1984), and The Willow Wind (1972; revised edition, 1981). He has also published The Silk Dragon: Translations from the Chinese (Copper Canyon, 2001), selected for a Western States Book Award, and edited Chinese Writers on Writing (Trinity University Press, 2010). Pig's Heaven Inn, a bilingual, Chinese/English selected poems, was published in Beijing (Intellectual Property Publishing House, 2014).

His poems have appeared internationally in such publications as American Poet; The American Poetry Review; Boston Review; Chicago Review; Conjunctions; Field; The Georgia Review; Harvard Review; The Kenyon Review; Manoa; The Massachusetts Review; Michigan Quarterly Review; Narrative; The Nation; New England Review; The New Republic; The New York Times; The New Yorker; Orion; The Paris Review; Ploughshares; Poetry; Tin House; Triquarterly; The Virginia Quarterly Review; The Washington Post; Hotel Parnassus: Poetry International 2007 (Rotterdam); Kyoto Journal (Kyoto); Pamirs Poetry Journey: The First Chinese-English Poetry Festival, 2007 (Huang Shan, China); Promoteo (XIX Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellín, 2009); American Alphabets; The Best American Poetry (2004, 2019, 2020); Language for a New Century; The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses (1996, 2010, 2020) and Verse and Universe. His poems have been translated into thirteen languages: Albanian, Brazilian Portuguese, Burmese, Chinese, Dutch, German, Italian, Korean, Lithuanian, Romanian, Spanish, Turkish, and Uzbek.

He is the recipient of many awards and fellowships, including the 8th Annual ‘T’ Space Poetry Award (2020), The Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers (2013), a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award (1998-2000), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1997), a Lannan Literary Award for Poetry (1995), two National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships (1982, 1993), a George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Fellowship, Brown University (1991), five Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry grants (1980, 1983, 1994, 1997, 2012), and the Eisner Prize, University of California at Berkeley (1971). Sze was a Helen Zell Visiting Writer at the University of Michigan (2019), a Humana Visiting Scholar at Centre College (2012), a Visiting Hurst Professor at Washington University (2005), a Doenges Visiting Artist at Mary Baldwin College (2004-2005), and has conducted residencies at Brown University, Bard College, Naropa University, and the University of Utah. He served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2012 to 2017 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017. He is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts and was the first Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lives.