It's On!

As of 9:30 this morning, the Eleventh Annual the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival is under way. If you're not here yet, come soon! We'll be here through Saturday afternoon.

From the Director: 2016

On behalf of our sponsors and the many volunteers who help make the 11^th annual Scissortail Festival possible, I welcome you to East Central University and to Ada, Oklahoma. This year we welcome 18 new voices to the program. One of my great delights is to see writers from across the country meet each other and become friends, fellow voices continuing the call for common sense and courageous virtue through the media of fiction and poetry. We also will award 8 collegiate writers from Texas and Oklahoma at the after party on Friday night. Hope you can attend. As usual, on Saturday we will award 26 high school students from over 600 entries from across the state. We salute all the teachers who make this happen!

Some things are changing at ECU. Two of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Scissortail Festival are moving on to other places. Phyllis Danley, Executive Director of the ECU Foundation, and Dr. Mark Hollingsworth, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, are leaving ECU. All of us associated with the Department of English and the festival offer a great big thank you to both of you for your wonderful support of the festival! You both will be missed.

There is much trouble in our world today. You hear, as I do, about the bombing in Belgium. And we hear about the subtle, and not-so-subtle attacks on our public school systems across the nation, the aggressive assault on general education, budget cutbacks and other misgivings about our relationship with each other in our democracy. Now, more than ever, I think we need the voices of artists reminding us to be, first of all, human, first of all, humane. I look forward to meeting each of you, hearing your presentations. I hope the artists and all the visitors have a truly fulfilling experience these three days.

I leave you with the lovely, haunting words of Jonas Zdanys, part of his poem “The White Bend of the River” from his book The Thin Light of Winter:

Time drifts past.

Only stones desire nothing.

The air is filled

with the sound of birds

murmuring of love

And despair.

See you soon!

Ken Hada

Scissortail after Dark

Scissortail after Dark

Jazz Standards by

The Moonlighters Combo

&

Awarding Winners of the Undergraduate

Creative Writing Contest

8:30 pm, Friday, April 1, 2016

(following Naomi Shihab Nye’s Evening Session on campus)

Cosponsored by Sigma Tau Delta & Literati

Directions to Ada Arts & Heritage Center, located on the corner of 14^th St. and Rennie St.

            1) From ECU campus, get on Mississippi St., turn left heading south. (Mississippi St. is immediately west of the University).

            2) Get in the right lane proceeding south to 14^th St.

            3) Turn right (west) on 14^th St., Proceed west (about 4 blocks), arrive at Rennie St.

            4) Ada Arts & Heritage Center is on the left corner of 14^th & Rennie.

            5) Parking across the street, and in the church lot adjacent to the Center.

Scissortail 2016: The Poster

Winners of the 12th Annual R. Darryl Fisher Creative Writing Contest

Poetry Winners
First Place: Sydney Campbell, "The Siren," Norman North. Teacher: Lezlie Christian
Second Place: Hayden Burleigh, "Ever," Bixby. Teacher: Mrs. Fisher
Third Place: Augusta Emmerson, "Who," Norman. Teacher: Sara Doolittle

Honorable Mention
Caitlynn Land, "A House," Purcell. Teacher: Ms. Liz Leonard
Savanah McDaniel, "Burn," Bixby. Teacher: Betty Fisher
Fabianna Chaparro, "Where Are You From (I Don't Know)?" Edmond North. Teacher: Ms. Abigail Guinn
Cheyenne Fulks, "Life," Purcell. Teacher: Ms. Leonard
Jesee Riley, "Rose," Antlers. Teacher: Ronda McCarter
Emalee Hicks, "Melodious Beauty," Vinita. Teacher: Ms. Dianna Just
Camille Hemry, "Resistance to Running," Norman. Teacher: Sara Doolittle
Sarah Turner, "Memories of Dust," Lawton. Teacher: Doc Freeman
Alyssa McLinden, "Not My Last Chance," Lawton. Teacher: Doc Freeman
Stephanie Penate, "Midnight," Norman. Teacher: Sara Doolittle

Fiction Winners
1st Place: Sadie Sieck, “Swim Time,” Norman North. Teacher: Lezlie Christian
2nd Place: Peter Biles, “The Antarctic Dream,” Latta. Teacher: Melinda Isaacs
3rd Place: Taylor Austin, “Family Tree,” Deer Creek. Teacher: Jason Stephenson

Honorable Mention
Sydney Campbell, “Lucid,” Norman North. Teacher: Lezlie Christian
Hayley Jumper, “Empty, Carbonated Silence," Claremore. Teacher: Teresa Smith
Megan Vander Bloomer, “Ode to Viceroy,” Moore. Teacher: Eileen Worthington
Brigette Drabek, “One Last Time,” Moore. Teacher: Eileen Worthington
Mary Davis, “A Cloak of Ashes,” Norman North. Teacher: Lezlie Christian
Grasyn Fuller, “Dear Miss Ruston,” Norman North. Teacher: Lezlie Christian
Willow Kirkpatrick, “The Visit,” Norman. Teacher: Sara Doolittle
Christopher Butcher, “The Selfless Quisling,” Yukon. Teacher: Cheryl Corlee
Brooke Fellows, “Vluerona,” Glenpool. Teacher: Phillip Harriman
Doris Zhou, “A Perspective on Siblinghood,” Norman. Teacher: Sara Doolittle

2016 Scissortail: Schedule of Readings

11^th Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival

Thursday, March 31

I. 9:30 – 10: 45 Estep Auditorium

Michael Howarth – Missouri Southern University

Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things

Dorothy Alexander- Santa Fe, Oklahoma

Coming & Going: Departures & Homecomings

Paul Austin – Norman, Oklahoma

Monk, and other poems

II. 11:00 – 12: 15 Estep Auditorium

Andrew Geyer – University of South Carolina - Aiken

Pink Elephants

Jenny Yang Cropp – Cameron University

String Theory

Shaun Perkins – Locust Grove, Oklahoma

Poem Life

III. 11:00 -12:15 North Lounge

Steven Schroeder – Chicago, Illinois

The Moon, not the Finger, Pointing

Kerri Vinson Snell – McPherson College

Topography of the Light-Filled

Nathan Brown – Wimberly, Texas

To Sing Hallucinated: First Thoughts on Last Word Words

*** Lunch ***

IV. 2:00 – 3: 15 North Lounge

Charlotte Renk – Athens, Texas

This Great Turtle Heart: The Tao of Turtlism

John Morris – Cameron University

One of the Things You Wouldn’t Think a Man Would Remember

William Peter Grasso – Tulsa, Oklahoma

Operation Fishwrapper

V. 2:00 – 3:15 Estep Auditorium

Sally Rhoades – Albany, New York

Where Light Falls

Clarence Wolfshohl – Fulton, Missouri

Three-Corner Catch

Yvonne Carpenter – Clinton, Oklahoma

From an Oklahoma Farm

VI. 3:30 – 4:45 Estep Auditorium

Brent Newsom – Oklahoma Baptist University

You a Good Man

Mary Anna Evans – University of Oklahoma

A Nice Atheist Boy

Tom Murphy – Texas A & M – Corpus Christi

American History

VII. 3:30 – 4:45 North Lounge

Joey Brown – Missouri Southern State University

Tyler

Rayshell Clapper – Seminole State College

Not a Bad Girl

Charles Etheridge – TX A &M – Corpus Christi

The Brenner Pass

VIII. 7:00 – Estep Auditorium

                       

(Musical Prelude: OPUS 1, begins at 6:30)

Larry D. Thomas – Alpine, Texas

As If Light Actually Matters

Rilla Askew – University of Oklahoma

Home Territory

Paul Bowers – Northern Oklahoma College

The Lone, Cautious, Animal Life

(Authors’ Reception follows at Vintage 22)

Friday, April 1

IX. 9:00 – 9:50 Estep Auditorium

Alan Gann – Dallas, Texas

Literary Springboards

Jason Poudrier – Cameron University

What about Fitch?

Jennifer Long – Eufaula, Oklahoma

I Swim Upstream

X. 9:00 – 9:50 North Lounge

Hank Jones –Tarleton State University

More Life to Lead, More Books to Read

Sarah Webb – Burnet, Texas

Rock and Friends

Robert Broyles – Oklahoma City, OK

Love Lost

XI. 10:00 – 10:50 Estep Auditorium

Bayard Godsave – Cameron University

The Clay Eaters

Jennifer Kidney – Norman, Oklahoma

Tempus Fugit

A.W. Marshall – Tulsa, Oklahoma

Simple Pleasures

XII. 10:00 -10:50 North Lounge

Ann Howells – Carrolton, Texas

Under a Lone Star

John Yozzo – Tulsa, Oklahoma

Broaching Wife & Epithalamia Over Time

Chera Hammons – Amarillo, Texas

The Poetry of Bomb City

XIII. 11:00 – 11:50 Estep Auditorium

Michael Dooley – Tarleton State University

The Cowboy and the Hippy Chick

Terri Cummings – Oklahoma City, OK

A New Season

Todd Fuller – University of Oklahoma

Binaries at the End of Nostalgia

XIV. 11:00 -11:50 North Lounge

George McCormick – Cameron University

Inland Empire

Michelle Hartman – Ft. Worth, Texas

My Inheritance & other poems

JC “Catfish” Mahan– Edmond, OK

Autumn on Costa Brava

*** Lunch ***

XV. 2:00 – 3:15 North Lounge

Rebecca Hatcher Travis – Sulphur, Oklahoma

Constant Fires

Haesong Kwon – Little Priest Tribal College

Independence Fighter

Gary Worth Moody – Santa Fe, New Mexico

The Burnings

XVI. 2:00 -3:15 Estep Auditorium

Walter Bargen – Ashland, Missouri

Did You Say That! – Persona Prose Poems

Brady Peterson – Belton, Texas

He Writes Poetry and Makes Soup

Maryann Hurtt – Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin

Once Upon a Tar Creek: Mining for Voices

XVII. 3:30 – 4:45 Estep Auditorium

Chris Ellery – Angelo State University

Sunday of Divine Mercy

Chip Dameron – Brownsville, Texas

Drinking from the River

Robin Carstensen – TX A & M-Corpus Christi

Ode to Before We Were Dance and Form

XVIII. 3:30 – 4:45 North Lounge

Hardy Jones – Cameron University

Praying Hands

Lucie Smoker – Enid, Oklahoma

Make More With Your Short Sticks

Debbi Brody – Santa Fe, New Mexico

2nd Generation American: Ancestor Influences

XIX. 7:00 Estep Auditorium

                       

Featuring Naomi Shihab Nye

                       

(Music by Rowdy Folk begins at 6:30 pm)

followed by Moonlighter’s Combo

& Awarding Collegiate Writers’ Contest

at the Ada Arts & Heritage Center

(the corner of 14^th & Rennie Streets)

Saturday, April 2

XX. 9:15– 10:15 Estep Auditorium

karla k. morton – Fort Worth, Texas
For the Love of the Horse

Ron Wallace – Southeastern State University

A Song for Lesser Gods

Julie Chappell – Tarleton State University

Mad Habits of a Life

XXI. 10:30 -12:00 Estep Auditorium

Elizabeth Raby – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Dodging Ice

Terry Dalrymple – Angelo State University

Dead Dogs

Jessica Isaacs – Seminole State College

Dumplins & other poems

Alan Berecka – Del Mar College

Post Modern Nostalgia

XXII. 12:15– 1:15pm Estep Auditorium

Grand Finale: Featuring Ben Myers

                       

& Awarding the Dr. Darryl Fisher

State High School Contest Winners

Scissortail 2016: Press Release

Creative Writers to gather at East Central University

The 11th annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival will draw many creative writers and fans alike to East Central University in Ada, Okla., March 31-April 2, 2016.

Authors Naomi Shihab Nye and Dr. Ben Myers will be featured in addition to more than 50 author presentations from Oklahoma and beyond. All sessions are free and open to the public.

Myers was named Oklahoma Poet Laureate in 2015. He is a literature professor at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Okla., and an award-winning author and scholar. Myers was born and raised in Oklahoma and is the author of two books of poetry, Lapse Americana and Elegy for Trains. His poems have appeared in many prominent journals, including The Yale Review, Nimrod, 32 Poems, Poetry Northwest, The New York Quarterly and Borderlands.

After appointing Dr. Myers as State Poet Laureate, Governor Mary Fallin said, “Through his poetry, Dr. Benjamin Myers demonstrates a deep love and kinship to Oklahoma. His poetry about our state offers a nuanced view of our people, our land and the values that we hold dear.”

Born to a Palestinian refugee father and an American mother in Missouri, Nye’s voice as a writer is attributed to her experience as an Arab-American. Her poems often reflect heritage, peace and humanitarian spirit. In high school, she moved to Palestine, then Jerusalem and finally back to San Antonio, Texas, where she currently calls home. She earned her bachelor’s degrees in English and World Religions from Trinity University.

Nye is the author of numerous books of poems, including Transfer, You and Yours, which received the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award; 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, a collection of new and selected poems about the Middle East; Fuel, Red Suitcase and Hugging the Jukebox.

She is also the author of several books of poetry and fiction for children, including Habibi,,for which she received the Jane Addams Children’s Book award in 1998.

Nye’s work has won several awards including the Charity Randall Prize, four Pushcart Prizes. She has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow and a Witter Bynner Fellow. She was also elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2009.

The Scissortail Creative Writing Festival runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, and from 8 a.m. to 2pm. on Saturday. Each day is broken into several sessions. For a complete schedule of readers, visit www.ecuscissortail.blogspot.com

The Darryl Fisher High School Creative Writing Contest and a Collegiate Creative Writing Contest are held in conjunction with the festival. Winners will be awarded during the festival. The Scissortail Creative Writing Festival is sponsored in part by the Oklahoma Arts Council. For more information, contact Dr. Ken Hada at 580-559-5557 or visit www.ecuscissortail.blogspot.com.