Hotel Arrangements

La Quinta is the official festival hotel for the 2020 festival.

Call and mention "Scissortail Festival"--the rate code is "SF-2020/ LDSF"--in order to get the festival rate for the 2020 Scissortail Festival.

$83 king $88 two queens + tax is available to authors and guests attending the festival (suites are higher price).

From the Management: “Thank you for staying with us every year. We do love serving your group. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you.”

Ronnie Gandhi, GM

La Quinta Inn & Suites

2828 E. Arlington St.

Ada, OK 74820

(580) 436-5000 Hotel

(580) 436-5004 Fax

Lq6494gm@laquinta.com

Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival Set For April 2-4 at East Central University

ADA – The annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival returns to the ECU campus next spring to continue its successful run, marking its 15th year as one of the preeminent events of its kind in the nation. A trio of celebrated authors – Barbara Crooker, Lou Berney, and Octavio Quintanilla – anchors the 2020 installment of the festival, scheduled for April 2-4. The event is open and free to the public. Information and schedules will be available elsewhere on this website.

The Scissortail Creative Writing Festival, as always, features Oklahoma’s most prestigious high school creative writing competition, now in its 16th year. The annual Darryl Fisher Creative Writing Contest is open to all state high school students submitting poetry or short works of fiction. Details are available here.

Crooker, Berney, and Quintanilla will highlight the three-day festival, which attracts some of the best known and emerging writing talents from around the country.

For more information on the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival or questions about group attendance, contact organizer Dr. Ken Hada at 580-559-5557 or via email at khada@ecok.edu.
Following are bios on the three featured writers.

BARBARA CROOKER
Barbara Crooker is a poetry editor for Italian-Americana, and author of nine full-length books of poetry, with Some Glad Morning coming out in the Pitt Poetry Series in 2019. Her awards include the WB Yeats Society of New York Award, the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, and three Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships.

Crooker’s work has appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies, including The Valparaiso Poetry Review, The Chariton Poetry Review, Green Mountains Review, Tar River Poetry Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, The Hollins Critic, The Denver Quarterly, Smartish Pace, Gargoyle, Christianity and Literature, The American Poetry Journal, Dogwood, Zone 3, Passages North, Nimrod, Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, The Bedford Introduction to Literature, and Nasty Women: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse. Her work has also been read on ABC and the BBC, and featured in Garrison Keillor’s “The Writer’s Almanac” and in Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry”.

LOU BERNEY
Lou Berney is the author of November Road (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.

Berney has 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 currently teaches in the M.F.A. program at Oklahoma City University.

OCTAVIO QUINTANILLA
Octavio Quintanilla is the author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014) and is the current Poet Laureate of San Antonio, Texas. His poetry, fiction, translations, and photography have appeared – or are forthcoming – in journals such as Salamander, RHINO, Alaska Quarterly Review, Pilgrimage, Green Mountains Review, Southwestern American Literature, The Texas Observer, Existere: A Journal of Art & Literature, and elsewhere.

Quintanilla’s visual work has been exhibited at Presa House Gallery; AllState Almaguer art space in Mission, Texas; the Weslaco Museum; Our Lady of the Lake University; El Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos; and at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center/Black Box Theater.

An exhibit of Quintanilla’s work is forthcoming at the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas and is the regional editor for Texas Books in Review and poetry editor for The Journal of Latina Critical Feminism. Quintanilla teaches Literature and Creative Writing in the M.A./M.F.A. program at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio.

16th Annual R. Darryl Fisher Creative Writing Contest

East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma presents
Oklahoma’s Most Prestigious High School Writing Competition

Prizes awarded at the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival, April 2-4, 2020 

  

Fiction: 1st Place $200; 2nd Place $150; 3rd Place $100

Poetry: 1st Place $200; 2nd Place $150; 3rd Place $ 100
20 Honorable Mention Awards of $25 each

  

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.  

* 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) Teacher’s name  

   3) School 4) Classification (senior, junior, etc.) 5) Phone number, Email and mailing address.  

* Work may be submitted through conventional mail or email. 

DEADLINE: Conventional mail must be postmarked on or before Friday, January 31, 2020. Email entries must be sent by 11:59 p.m. on January 31, 2020. There will be no exceptions. Winners will be notified in early March, and awards will be presented Saturday, April 4 in the Cole University Center (Estep Auditorium), on the East Central University campus.  A list of winners and winning entries may be posted online at www.ecuscissortail.blogspot.com.  Please visit this site for festival and contest history and information.  Previous award-winning Fisher contest entries are also available .        

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) 

Scissortail 2019: The Poster

From the Director, 2019

Welcome to the 14th annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival.

On behalf of so many: sponsors, colleagues, administration, students and volunteers, it is my pleasure to welcome to you Ada, Oklahoma and East Central University. This year we welcome 19 new voices to the festival. I hope all of us, new and returning writers, guests and workers, greatly enjoy our time together.

A stanza from a Stanley Kunitz poem has been speaking to me:

The sands whispered, Be separate,
The stones taught me, Be hard.
I dance, for the joy of surviving,
On the edge of the road.
(Stanley Kunitz, “An Old Cracked Tune” Passing Through: The Later Poems)

And a couple of lines from my poem “In Kyoto” (in my latest collection, Not Quite Pilgrims):
“not unlike Basho, making something / that may outlive itself.”

As writers, as teachers, as citizens trying to make a positive difference, we sometimes find ourselves “on the edge of the road” – on the margins of a consumer society. I hope the gathering together at the festival inspires us all to continue the good work of making something / that may outlive itself.

See you soon!
Ken Hada

Winners of the 15th Annual R. Darryl Fisher Creative Writing Contest

Poetry Winners
First Place: Olivia Robertson, "Nannerl," Norman HS (Instructor: Sara Doolittle)
Second Place: Checotah Fulks, "Witness of Rust," Purcell HS (Liz Leonard)
Third Place: Amanda Baskett, "Sexual assault feels like a rite of passage," Edmond Memorial HS (Kelly Bristow)

Honorable Mentions:
Evie Sondag, "At the End," Norman HS (Sara Doolittle)
Brenna Sawney, "Love is a Weapon," Sallisaw HS (Sarah Wilson)
Mia Di Renzo, "Untitled," Lawton HS (Terence Freeman)
Jacob Compton, "Past Tense," Lawton HS (Terence Freeman)
Adam Nunez, "The Contract," Epic Charter Schools (Richard Filbert)
Trinity Whitehead, "Chasm," Ada HS (Megan Moiser)
Ariana Delarosa, "Shoes/Heart," Norman North HS (Brent Taylor)
J.D. Wright, "Revelation 13," Altus HS (Jessica Robinson)
Kyle Marshall, "Ripples," Edmond Memorial HS (Kelly Bristow)
Zoe Hamilton, "Stockholm Syndrome," Edmond Memorial HS (Kelly Bristow)

Fiction Winners:
First Place: Rachel Owen. “The Skeleton of the Daylily.” Norman (Sara Doolittle)
Second Place: Evan Boothe. “The Tones of the Void.” Washington (Dawn Lanham)
Third Place: Amanda Baskett. “If You Love Something.” Edmond Memorial (Kelly Bristow)

Honorable Mentions:
Rachel Black. “The Final Frontier.” Grove (Terri Guthridge)
Perrisa A. Borders. “All Smiles.” Santa Fe South Pathways (Michelle Manning)
Georgia Campbell. “Siren Song.” Norman (Sara Doolittle)
Hayleigh Carrillo. “Ecstasy.” Santa Fe South Pathways (Michelle Manning)
Olivia Clayton. “Late Night Drive.” Tulsa Union (Henry Cribbs)
Chassidy Dixon. “Lost Justice.” Marlow (Ann Field)
Harper Keppel. “Mysterious Letters from X.” Norman (Sara Doolittle)
Megan Roach. “The Story of a Yankee.” Washington (Dawn Lanham)
Jamie Slaton. “A Rebel at Heart.” Santa Fe South Pathways (Michelle Manning)
Hayley Steele. “The Key.” Norman North (Brent Taylor)

2019: Schedule of Readings

14^th Annual: Scissortail Creative Writing Festival

April 4-6, 2019

East Central University

Ada, Oklahoma

Thursday, April 4

I. 9:30 – 10: 45 Estep Auditorium 

Ben Myers – Oklahoma Baptist University

Black Sunday: The Dust Bowl Sonnets

Joey Brown – Missouri Southern State Univ.

Content Subject to Change: Take 2

Gary Worth Moody – Santa Fe, New Mexico

See That My Grave is Kept: Norteño Desert, Rio Grande Blues

II. 11:00 – 12: 15 Estep Auditorium

Larry D. Thomas – Las Cruces, New Mexico

Placido

Julie Chappell, on Lake Keystone (Oklahoma)

Scorpion dreams among us

Chris Ellery – Angelo State University

Elegy for Father Frans

Walter Bargen – Ashland, Missouri

My Other Mother’s Red Mercedes

*** Lunch ***

III. 2:00 – 3: 15 North Lounge

Dan Wilcox -Albany, New York

Baseball Poems

Sarah Webb – Burnet, Texas

Following the Thread

Bill Endres – University of Oklahoma

In a Fit of Self-Loathing & Other Poems

Lyman Grant – Harrisonburg, Virginia

Digging

IV. 2:00 – 3:15 Estep Auditorium

Paul Juhasz – Allentown, Pennsylvania

If Two Crazy People Can Dance, Who Eats the Dog?

Sally Rhoades – Albany, New York

Yellow Roses and Green Pears

Mark Johnson – Tulsa, Oklahoma

The Muse Leaves Oklahoma Behind

Colin Pope – Stillwater, Oklahoma

Why I Didn’t Go To Your Funeral

V. 3:30 – 4:45 Estep Auditorium

Paul Austin – Norman, Oklahoma

Notes on Hard Times

Michelle Hartman – Ft. Worth, Texas

Wanton Disarray

Cullen Whisenhunt & Randy Prus –Murray State College & SEOSU

Poem Tag

Chris Soden – Dallas, Texas

Sideshow

VI. 3:30 – 4:45 North Lounge

John Yozzo – Tulsa, Oklahoma

Poems My Father Taught Me: Lyrics from the Guthrie Readings

Sharon Edge Martin – Oilton, Oklahoma

Art and Politics

Bill McCloud – Rogers State University

Poetry on Deadline

John Andrews – Stillwater, Oklahoma

Colin is Changing His Name: Growing Up and Coming Out in the Rural South in Poems

VII. 7:00 – 8:30 Ataloa Theatre

Hallie Brown Ford Fine Arts Center

                  

featuring: Tracy K. Smith

(Authors’ Reception – Vintage 22)

 (800 E. Main St.)