22nd Annual Scissortail: The Poster

22nd Annual Scissortail: Featured Authors

Kelli Jo Ford is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her debut novel-in-stories Crooked Hallelujah was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, The Story Prize, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, The Dublin Literary Award, and The Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. She is the recipient of honors and awards such as The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize, an NEA Literature Fellowship, a Creative Capital Award, a Dobie Paisano Fellowship, and a Native Arts & Cultures Foundation Fellowship. She teaches writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Wayne Miller is the author of six poetry collections, most recently The End of Childhood (Milkweed, 2025) and We the Jury (2021). His awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, as well as the UNT Rilke Prize, two Colorado Book Awards, two Pushcart Prizes, six awards from the Poetry Society of America, and a Fulbright Distinguished Scholarship to the Seamus Heaney Centre in Northern Ireland. He has co-translated three books by the Albanian writer Moikom Zeqo—most recently the prose collection Sellers of Chaos, forthcoming from Unbound Edition Press. He teaches at the University of Colorado Denver, co-directs the Unsung Masters Series, and edits Copper Nickel.

Vu Tran is the author of Dragonfish – a New York Times Notable Book and a San Francisco Chronicle Best Books of the Year – as well as a forthcoming novel, Your Origins. His criticism and short fiction have appeared in publications like the New York Times, The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Best American Stories, Virginia Quarterly, and McSweeney’s. Born in Vietnam and raised in Oklahoma, Vu received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and his PhD from the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas, and is also the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from the NEA, MacDowell, Yaddo, and Bread Loaf. He teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Chicago, where he is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Arts and Director of Undergraduate Studies.

23rd Annual R. Darryl Fisher Creative Writing Contest

East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma presents

Oklahoma’s Most Prestigious High School Writing Competition

Fiction: 1 "Superior"Award: $300; 4 "Outstanding"Awards @ $150; Five "Excellent" Awards @ $50

Poetry: 1 "Superior"Award: $300; 4 "Outstanding"Awards @ $150; Five "Excellent" Awards @ $50

Guidelines:

* All Oklahoma high school students (9th - 12th grade) are eligible.

* Poetry (up to 100 lines) or Short Fiction (up to 6,000 words) is acceptable.

* Limit 5 poems and 1 short fiction piece per student.

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

* Absolutely, any use of AI, computer-generated “work” is unacceptable!

* All entries must be neatly typed; please double-space fiction entries.

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

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

* Provide cover page with contact information: 1) Student’s name; 2) High School and Teacher’s name 3) Classification (senior, junior, etc.) 4) Phone number, Email and student’s mailing address. (Work submitted without a mailing address for each student will not be judged)

DEADLINE: Conventional mail must be postmarked on or before Monday, February 16, 2027. Email entries must be sent via email by 11:59 p.m. on February 16, 2027. There will be no exceptions.

Awards will be recognized by May 1, 2027. The names of winning writers will be posted on this website. Awards will be mailed to students.

Poetry Submissions: send work electronically as attached files to jgrasso@ecok.edu or mail to Dr. Joshua Grasso, East Central University, Dept. of English & Languages, 1100 E. 14th St., Ada, OK 74820

Fiction Submissions: send work electronically as attached files to peterbattlebiles@gmail.com or mail to Peter Biles at 14577 CR 1569 Ada, OK 74820

Contest Information: Dr. Joshua Grasso (580-235-3197).
Scissortail Creative Writing Festival Information: Dr. Ken Hada (580-559-5557)

Winners of the 22nd Annual Daryl Fisher Creative Writing Contest

Poetry winners:

First Prize:
Ryli Wilkinson, “In Realms of Youth,” Marietta HS (Instructor: Mrs. Neble)

Second Prize:
Pablo Benton, “The Battle of Roquefort,” Ada HS (Micah Gordon)

Third Prize:
Lydia Wiley, “Secrecy’s Chokehold,” North Rock Creek HS (Holly Kubiak)
Paul Potts, “I speak with the same tongue,” Dale Senior HS (Allison Robinson)
Anna Arnold, “Grown Too Quick,” Salina HS (Mackenzie Greene)

Honorable Mentions:
Lily Ashley, “What is Stronger Than a Human Heart?” New Lima HS (Mrs. Forman)
Logan Heard, “School,” New Lima HS (Mrs. Forman)
Reece Ellison, “Monotonous Mountain of Molasses,” Latta HS (Mrs. Bryant)
Cyanna Bagent, “stargazing from my bedroom,” Pryor HS
Lacey Moon, “Love and Hate,” Edmond North HS (Tessa Phillips)

Fiction winners:

First Prize:
Orion Riden, “Love in War,” Ada HS (Instructor: Megan Mosier)

Second Prize:
Lydia Wiley, “A Girl, A Gate and a Glimmer,” North Rock Creek HS (Holly Kubiak)

Third Prize:
Phoebe Denison, “Midnight Rain,” Beaver HS (Jinger Looper)
Blake Mueggenborg, “The Art of Skipping,” Edmond North HS (Samantha Choate)
Omia Milton, “The Room Has Eyes,” Byng HS (Joni Moore)

Honorable Mentions:
Fiorella Lucia Montilla Pulgar, “The Hallucination,” Deer Creek HS (Julia Miller)
Reece Ellison, “A World of Placebo,” Latta HS (Hayley Bryant)
Zoey Coffee, “The Host Family,” Deer Creek HS (Julia Miller)
Austin Talkington, “The Tale of Arachnidsman,” Madill HS (Lori Hartin)

21st Annual Scissortail: The Poster

2026: Schedule of Readings

21^st Annual: Scissortail Creative Writing Festival
April 2 - 4, 2026
East Central University
Ada, Oklahoma 

Thursday, April 2

I. 9:30 – 10: 45 Estep Auditorium 

Cody Baggerly: East Central University
Hardly Been Born
Ann Howells: Carrolton, Texas
Travelin Shoes
Paul Austin: Norman, Oklahoma
Two Love Stories: Lost and Found 

II. 11:00 – 12: 10 Estep Auditorium

Tom Murphy: Corpus Christi, Texas
To All the Women
Linda Neal Reising: Poseyville, Indiana
One Hundred Years of Kicks
Walter Moore: Tarleton State University
My Lungs are a Dive Bar & other poems 

III. 11:00 - 12:10 Boswell Chapel

Ron Wallace: Durant, Oklahoma
Somewhere There’s a Horse
Luri Owen: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Along the Way
Alan Gann: Dallas, Texas
Consider the Dirt 

*** Lunch ***

21st Annual Scissortail: Featured Authors

Traci Brimhall, a University Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and Narrative Medicine at Kansas State University, is celebrated for her unique poetry that intertwines the ordinary with the surreal. She has authored five poetry collections, including the upcoming "Love Prodigal" (Copper Canyon Press, 2024), and her work has been prominently featured in journals such as The New Yorker, Orion, The New Republic, and The New York Times Magazine. Brimhall's teaching experiences, supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Parks Service, and Academy of American Poets, have spanned diverse settings from farm schools to medical communities, reflecting her commitment to fostering creative expression across varied environments.

As the current Poet Laureate of Kansas, Brimhall has focused her initiatives on uniting the state's agricultural heritage with literary arts. Her advocacy includes projects like poetry cookbooks, food-based mad lib poems, and bringing poetry to the State Fair, aiming to enrich the lives of all Kansans through language.

Brimhall's literary contributions extend beyond poetry to include essays published in prestigious journals such as Georgia Review, The Southern Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her accolades include awards like the Barnard Women Poets Prize for "Our Lady of the Ruins," and her work has been recognized in Best American Poetry anthologies.

Educationally, Brimhall holds degrees from Florida State University (BA), Sarah Lawrence College (MFA), and Western Michigan University (PhD). At Kansas State University, where she directs the creative writing program and holds the Donnelly Faculty Award in English, she continues to inspire and mentor aspiring writers.

Her numerous residencies and fellowships include an Artist-in-Residence position at Bighorn Canyon through the National Parks Service and the My Time fellowship from the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow. Brimhall's scholarly pursuits also include the Karnes Fellowship from Purdue Libraries, focusing on the unpublished poems of Amelia Earhart.

Traci Brimhall's career exemplifies a profound dedication to poetic innovation, community engagement, and scholarly exploration, making her a pivotal figure in contemporary American poetry and beyond.

Joseph Fasano is a writer and educator. He studied mathematics and astrophysics at Harvard University before changing his course of study and earning a degree in philosophy, with a focus on philosophy of language after Wittgenstein. He did his graduate study in poetry at Columbia University, working with Mark Strand, Lucie Brock-Broido, Richard Howard, and others. Beyond his Professorships, Fasano is passionate about developing inclusive learning communities outside the walls of academic institutions. As an educator, his mission is to help each student synthesize diverse fields of study to develop a unique and informed voice, a depth of attention, and a capacity to break free of reductive mindsets. His "Poetry Prompts," originally designed to help children create, have spread around the world, helping millions of people of all ages find their voices through the craft and magic of poetry.

Fasano is the author of two novels: The Swallows of Lunetto (Maudlin House, 2022) and The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing (Platypus Press, 2020), which was named one of the "20 Best Small Press Books of 2020." His books of poetry are The Last Song of the World (forthcoming from BOA Editions, 2024); The Crossing (Cider Press Review, 2018), praised by Ilya Kaminsky for its "lush drive to live, even in the darkest moments"; Vincent (2015), which Rain Taxi Review hailed as a "major literary achievement";  Inheritance (2014), a James Laughlin Award nominee; Fugue for Other Hands (2013), which won the Cider Press Review Book Award and was nominated for the Poets' Prize, "awarded annually for the best book of verse published by a living American poet two years prior to the award."

A winner of the RATTLE Poetry Prize, he serves on the Editorial Board of Alice James Books, and he is the Founder of the Poem for You Series, a digital space offering recitations of listeners' favorite poems by request. His writing has appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, The Yale Review, The Southern Review, The Missouri Review, Boston Review, American Poets, Measure, Tin House, American Poetry Journal, The Adroit Journal, American Literary Review, Verse Daily, the PEN Poetry Series, the Academy of American Poets' poem-a-day program, and other publications. It has been widely anthologized and translated into many languages, including Spanish, Swedish, Lithuanian, Chinese, Russian, and Ukrainian. He is also a songwriter, and his debut album, The Wind That Knows The Way, is available wherever music is sold or streamed.

Chera Hammons is a winner of the 2017 PEN Southwest Book Award through PEN Texas and the 2020 Helen C. Smith Memorial Award through the Texas Institute of Letters. She holds an MFA from Goddard College and formerly served as writer-in-residence at West Texas A&M University. Her work, which is rooted in love for the natural world, appears in Baltimore Review, Pleiades, Poetry, Rattle, The Southern Review, The Sun, The Texas Observer, and elsewhere. Her fifth full-length poetry collection, Birds of America, is forthcoming from The Dial Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. She lives on the windswept prairies of the Texas Panhandle. In her free time, she enjoys reading, birdwatching, spending time with her horses and donkeys, and caring for her houseplant collection, which is slowly but surely taking over her entire living space.

2026: Scissortail Biographies

Rilla Askew is the author of five novels, two books of stories, and a collection of creative nonfiction. She’s a PEN/Faulkner Finalist and recipient of the WILLA Award, Western Heritage Award, Oklahoma Book Award, and the Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her poems and essays have appeared in Nimrod, Tin House, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. “Convergence,” first published in AGNI magazine, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She teaches creative writing at the University of Oklahoma.

Actor and poet Paul Austin is the author of Spontaneous Behavior, the Art and Craft of Acting and Mother and Son, both published by Turning Plow Press, and Notes on Hard Times, published by Village Books Press. His work has appeared in This Land, Sugar Mule, Oklahoma Review, More Monologues by Men, and Newport Review. A collection of his writings, Late Night Conspiracies, was performed with jazz ensemble at New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre. Austin will be reading from his latest collection.

Cody Baggerly is an Oklahoma poet from Chickasaw Country. His work has been featured in ECU's literary journal, Originals, the Rising Phoenix Review, the Dublin California Poetry Walk, Wingless Dreamer, Alien Buddha, White Winged Doves: A Stevie Nicks Poetry Anthology, Literature Today, San Pedro River Review, Dos Gatos Press, and the NoSleep Podcast. He has also presented his poetry at the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival, the Woody Guthrie Festival, and he is the host of the First Monday Open-Mic in Ada, Okla.

2026 Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest

Prizes: * 1^st - $250 * 2^nd - $150 * 3^rd - $100
(Plus Books & Honorable Mentions) 

Guidelines:

• Contest is open only to currently enrolled undergraduate students.
• To be eligible, students must attend the Festival. Recognition will occur Friday evening, April 3, 2026.  (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 2) one piece of creative nonfiction (up to 7500 words), or 3) 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. Any use of AI is unacceptable!
• 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. Joshua Grasso at jgrasso@ecok.edu. In the subject line of your email submission, type “Scissortail Undergraduate Contest.”
• Professor Grasso will screen entries, then an outside judge will judge all entries that meet minimum guidelines.

DEADLINE: Email entries to jgrasso@ecok.edu  must be received by March 6, 2026. There will be no exceptions. Recognition of writers will occur Friday April 3 as part of the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival held at East Central University (April 2 - 4, 2026). Please regularly visit  www.ecuscissortail.blogspot.com to view festival updates. Contact: Ken Hada, khada@ecok.edu (580) 559-5557 for information regarding the Festival.

Judge: Brent Newsom received the 2020 Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award in poetry from Poets & Writers, and he wrote the libretto for A Porcelain Doll, an opera based on the life of deaf-blind pioneer Laura Bridgman. He is the author of Love’s Labors (CavanKerry Press, 2015), which was a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award in poetry. His poems have also appeared in Southern Review, Hopkins Review, PANK, Cave Wall, and other journals.

Expectations and Submission Guidelines

21^st Annual Scissortail Festival, April 2 - 4, 2026

Expectations: The Scissortail Festival is a shared experience, and all involved contribute to the success of the event. In the words of poet Major Jackson, who graced the festival in 2022, authors are expected to be “Citizens” of the festival. Authors selected for the program are expected to be a good citizen by attending sessions of fellow authors, and interacting positively with fellow authors, guests and students – the varied audience members of the festival. In short, Scissortail is a Festival celebrating creative writing, not a platform for individual egos, so put your ego in your back pocket, and come share a positive, generative experience. Thank you for contributing to the festive, inspiring, positive vibe, uplifting all who attend.

To be considered for a spot on the program, please send your best work, while considering the following guidelines. Please follow exactly.

* Authors will have not more than 20 minutes to present their material – this is the total time at the mic, including any comments you make in addition to the presented material.

* Scissortail is a reading festival. No workshops, how-to, propaganda or pre-arranged panels are acceptable. Reading sessions feature a mixture of authors and genre.

* Fiction and creative nonfiction writers are encouraged to Excerpt their submission to fit into the time restraints (The appeal of a narrative may, in fact, be heightened by presenting a carefully selected excerpt, rather than speed-reading).

* Due to the number of participants, it is not possible to accommodate scheduling requests.

* Please understand that Ada, Oklahoma is a small town with very limited public transportation and has a limited number of hotel rooms. Ada is a two-hour drive from the Oklahoma City airport, three hours from DFW (in good traffic) and two and half hours from Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Scissortail Festival is unable to provide shuttle service to and from these airports, so please consider these factors before submitting.

* Sessions usually consist of 3 or 4 readers per session. Authors may NOT exceed 20 minutes total time at the mic – including prose, including commentary. Please respect your audience and fellow readers by diligently adhering to time restraints.

Submit by email: 1) complete contact information 2) the title of your program and the work to be considered – please consider the time restraints per reader. 3) a paragraph-length biographical narrative summarizing publications and significant accomplishments (please write bios in 3^rd person).

Deadline for submission is December 15, 2025. The schedule will be announced as early as possible, in January, and certainly by early February at the latest.

Send email submissions to: scissortailfestival@gmail.com. Identify “Scissortail Submission” in the subject line.

Please check your calendar before submitting. Participants are not charged registration fees, nor are authors compensated. Ecuscissortail.blogspot.com is the official location for information, schedules, bios, etc. Please check that site regularly for information and updates.

22nd Annual R. Darryl Fisher Creative Writing Contest

East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma presents

Oklahoma’s Most Prestigious High School Writing Competition

Fiction: 1st Place: $250; 2nd place $150; Three 3rd places $100

Poetry: 1st Place: $250; 2nd place $150; Three 3rd places $100
Five Honorable Mention Certificates

Guidelines:

* All Oklahoma high school students (9th - 12th grade) are eligible.

* Poetry (up to 100 lines) or Short Fiction (up to 6,000 words) is acceptable.

* Limit 5 poems and 1 short fiction piece per student.

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

* Absolutely, any use of AI, computer-generated “work” is unacceptable!

* All entries must be neatly typed; please double-space fiction entries.

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

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

* Provide cover page with contact information: 1) Student’s name; 2) High School and Teacher’s name 3) Classification (senior, junior, etc.) 4) Phone number, Email and student’s mailing address. (Work submitted without a mailing address for each student will not be judged)

DEADLINE: Conventional mail must be postmarked on or before Monday, February 16, 2026. Email entries must be sent via email by 11:59 p.m. on February 16, 2026. There will be no exceptions.

Recognition: The names of winning writers will be posted online on this website. Awards will be mailed to students as gift cards.

Poetry Submissions: send work electronically as attached files to jgrasso@ecok.edu or mail to Dr. Joshua Grasso, East Central University, Dept. of English & Languages, 1100 E. 14th St., Ada, OK 74820

Fiction Submissions: send work electronically as attached files to mwalling@ecok.edu or mail to Dr. Mark Walling, East Central University, Dept. of English and Languages, 1100 E. 14th St., Ada, OK 74820

Contest Information: Dr. Joshua Grasso (580-235-3197); Dr. Mark Walling (580-559-5440). Scissortail Creative Writing Festival Information: Dr. Ken Hada (580-559-5557)

20th Annual Scissortail: The Poster

20th Annual Scissortail: Featured Authors

Ken Hada, cofounder of the Scissortail Festival, and director for 20 years, is honored to have been selected by his ECU colleagues to read at the 2025 festival. Ken is the author of twelve collections of poetry, including his latest: Visions for the Night and Come Before Winter, from Turning Plow Press. His previous collection, Contour Feathers (Turning Plow Press, 2021) received the Oklahoma Book Award. Other works of his have been awarded by The Western Writers of America, The National Western Heritage Museum, South Central Modern Language Association and The Oklahoma Center for the Book, and featured on "The Writer's Almanac." In addition to his poetry, Ken remains active in scholarship, writing and publishing regularly on regional writing, literary ecology and multicultural literatures. The “Ken Hada Collection” is held at the Western History Collection Library at the University of Oklahoma.

Julie Hensley is the author of the chapbook, The Language of Horses (Finishing Line Press), and the books, VIABLE: Poems (Five Oaks Press 2015) and LANDFALL: A Ring of Stories (Ohio State University Press 2016). An Associate Professor at Eastern Kentucky University and core faculty member in the Bluegrass Writers Studio Low-Res MFA Program, she lives in Richmond with her husband, the writer R Dean Johnson, and their two children.

ire’ne lara silva, the 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate, is the author of five poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, FirstPoems, and the eaters of flowers, two chapbooks, Enduring Azucares and Hibiscus Tacos, and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán.ire’ne is the recipient of a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. Most recently, ire’ne was awarded the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction. ire’ne is currently a Writer at Large for Texas Highways Magazine and is working on a second collection of short stories titled, the light of your body. Her first comic book, VENDAVAL, will be released by the Chispa Imprint of Scout Comics in April 2024. http://www.irenelarasilva.wordpress.com

2025: Schedule of Readings

20^th Annual: Scissortail Creative Writing Festival
April 3 - 5, 2025
East Central University
Ada, Oklahoma 

Thursday, April 3

I. 9:30 – 10: 45 Estep Auditorium 

Woodstok Farley: Mingus Texas
The Killing of the Poet Laureate of Corpus Christi: A Nod to Edgar Allan Poe
Julie Chappell: Lake Keystone, Oklahoma
Watermarks
David Meischen: Albuquerque, NM
Caliche Road Poems

2025: Scissortail Biographies

Sly Alley is a writer of poetry and short-fiction whose debut collection of poems titled Strong Medicine (Village Books Press, 2016) won the 2017 Oklahoma Book Award for poetry. He writes on a vintage Royal typewriter in a fortified shack in Tecumseh, Oklahoma.

Rilla Askew is the author of five novels, a book of stories, and a collection of creative nonfiction. She’s received the American Book Award, Western Heritage Award, Oklahoma Book Award, and Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her essays, poems, and short fiction have appeared in Nimrod, Tin House, World Literature Today, AGNI, and elsewhere. Askew’s novel  Prize for the Fire, about Early Modern English writer Anne Askew, was a finalist for the 2023 Oklahoma Book Award. Her newest collection of stories, The Hungry & The Haunted, is published by Belle Point Press.

Winners of the 21st Annual Daryl Fisher Creative Writing Contest

Poetry Winners:

First Prize: Ava Blakley, “Written Syncopation for the Organic Lover.” Edmond Santa Fe High School (Instructor: Stephanie Bray)
Second Prize: Anna Arnold, “Laughter spills like wine” Salina Public Schools (Mackenzie Greene)
Third Prize: Rebecca Olivero, “To Dare.” Edmond Memorial High School (Kelly Bristow)

Honorable Mentions:
Aaliyah Coffman, “Shout out to.” North Rock Creek High School (Holly Kubiak)
Victoria Gogol, “Symphony of Shadows.” Bishop Kelley High School (Trevor Parks)
Brooke Miller, “A Prayer.” Life Ready Center (Maureen DuRant)
Paul Potts, “Frutiger Aero.” Dale Senior High School (Allison Robinson)
Rebekah Raglow, “With the Tide.” Edmond Memorial High School (Kelly Bristow)
Ava Reno, “Suffocating in Hope.” Kingston High School (Mrs. Minor)
Savannah Romanson, “Downpour.” Edmond Memorial High School (Kelly Bristow)
Abbey Whaley, “Anger.” Stonewall High School (Sheryl Fortner)
Amina Whiteside, "Toy slot machines." Lawton High School (Maureen DuRant)
Lydia Wiley, “Have you ever seen the sun?” North Rock Creek High School (Nicki Gray)

Fiction Winners:

First Prize: Lydia Wiley. “A Boy, a Badger, and a Bear.” North Rock Creek (Nicki Gray)
Second Prize: Ava Blakley. “The Diner by the Sea.” Edmond Santa Fe (Stephanie Bray)
Third Prize: Reece Ellison. “Timothy and the Grouch.” Latta (Tamra Byrd)

Honorable Mentions:
Hailey Edwards, “The Last Message.” Latta (Hayley Bryant)
Aimee Rogers, “When the Lights Turn Off.” Dale (Allison Robinson)
Phoebe Denison, “My Eighth Grade Experience.” Beaver (Krystal Scott)
Victoria Gogol, “The Ghost of Layla.” Tulsa Bishop Kelley (Trevor Parks)
Hazel Morton, “How the Fox Got Its Name.” Kingston (Brett Hayes)
Andrew Henderson, “The Pen in His Pocket.” Edmond Memorial (Kelly Bristow)
Ellis Brown, “Letters of the Library.” Edmond Memorial (Kelly Bristow)
Caden Mignosa, “Farewell, Bene.” Edmond Memorial (Kelly Bristow)
Gabriel Schmult and Lakota Huffine, “Whispers of Blood: The Silent Hunt.” Wanette (Noah Inscore)
Hannah West, “Journal 268.” North Rock Creek (Grace Kliewer)

2024 Undergraduate Writing Contest Finalists

First Place: Glory Curda, Oklahoma City University
"7:00 am Outside Gallup NM":

Second Place: Kaiya Jones, Oklahoma City University
"Their Voice"

Third Place: Cathlena Spencer, East Central University
"A Safe Space to Land"

Honorable Mentions:
Ben Payne, East Central University
"Boys Being Boys"

Ryn Swinson, Cameron University
"Birth Mother"

Kaley Muse, Cameron University
"Lavender Fields in Heaven"

From the Director - Welcome 2024

Welcome to the 19th Annual Scissortail Festival. I am still amazed that decent people from all over the country travel to Ada, Oklahoma to read and listen to others read. But perhaps I shouldn’t be amazed. Perhaps reading to each other, and being read to, is a deep need that too often goes unfulfilled. Maybe Scissortail allows for that need to be met. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about history, about my time with this festival, about your experience with this festival. Thank you for contributing to the festival – 19 of you for the first time – and to all the returners, both presenters and especially audience members. Thank you for making good history with me, with us all.

The History We Are

Hear the crow call.
See the crow flap
against morning light,
wrens secluded
in wintered branches,
a jogger in purple
moves around the lake
in careful trot,
two mallards in shallows.

The sycamores are white.
The cedars are green.
There is no breeze.
Brown oak leaves cling
to what once was.
Everything hangs on
to what has been
while the crow records
the history we are.


On behalf of the many wonderful colleagues and volunteers who contribute so much to these three days, Welcome! Enjoy your time here together at ECU.

Ken Hada

19th Annual Scissortail: The Poster

 

2024: Schedule of Readings

19^th Annual: Scissortail Creative Writing Festival
April 4 - 6, 2024
East Central University
Ada, Oklahoma 

Thursday, April 4

I. 9:30 – 10: 45 Estep Auditorium 

Ky George: Gallup, New Mexico
Fire in the Pulpit
Walter Bargen: Ashland, Missouri
Down the Rabbit Hole of War
Mark Walling: East Central University
One Dalmatian 

II. 11:00 – 12: 10 Estep Auditorium

Nikki Herrin: Wayne, Oklahoma
Progression
Wendy Dunmeyer: Lawton, Oklahoma
Importance of Words
Alan Berecka: Sinton, Texas
Selected Poems 

III. 11:00 - 12:10 Regents Room

Clarence Wolfshohl: Fulton, Missouri
Lo, the Gods
Sally Rhoades: Albany, New York
When the Roses are in Bloom
Josh Grasso: East Central University
The Domovoi

IV. 11:00 – 12:10 Boswell Chapel

Lyman Grant: Harrisonburg, Virginia
November Constellation
Keely Record: Tulsa, Oklahoma
From Here
Brady Peterson: Belton, Texas
Letters from the Edge of the Round Earth 

*** Lunch ***