Writing Contest for
Community College Students
2009 Winners

The entries were really wonderful this year, and our judges took great pleasure in reading through all of them.

The FIRST PLACE WINNER in each category will receive: $100 cash prize; a full tuition-waiver for a three-credit course in the English Literature and Writing Department at Marylhurst University during the 2009-10 academic year; and publication of the creative pieces on the English Literature & Writing Department’s homepage.

The SECOND PLACE WINNER in each category will receive $100 cash prize.

The THIRD PLACE WINNER in each category will receive $50 cash prize.

2009 Marylhurst University’s Community College Writing Contest

Fiction Winner

"SUBJECT: Predisposition"
by Teresa Coates, Portland Community College

The American narrator moves her children to Vietnam, and as she attempts to settle into a new life, both her grandfather and father become sick. What I admire so much is Ms. Coates’s specific yet compressed prose. An emigrant often leaves home without necessarily finding another, and Ms. Coates story captures this dislocation in a poignant way.

Second Prize: "Untitled" by Tyler McCabe, Clark College

Third Prize: "Seasons of Change" by Barb Froman, Clackamas Community College

Poetry Winner

"The Engine Driver's Wife"
by Megan Sinnott, Portland Community College

Megan Sinnott's entry, The Engine Driver's Wife, crisscrosses a trajectory of discovery and familiarity throughout its 30 lines. The poem's regional landscapes signify more than just their immediate terrain. Supporting its sense of longing is the poem's interplay of textural and acoustical details, as well as its subtle deployment of internal rhyme. At the poem's conclusion, a cinematic quality culminates with a close-up, in which the speaker, fittingly enough, suggests the finality embodied in those 30 lines.

Second Prize: "Transformation" by Nancilee Baker, Clackamas Community College

Third Prize: "Bitter Sweet" by Mariah Ureel, Clackamas Community College

Memoir Winner

"The Letter"
by Kelly Tallent, Mount Hood Community College

The first line of Kelly Tallent’s essay, The Letter, throws the reader straight into the tight world of the piece: "The faux wood paneling walls of our trailer were thin as two dead fly wings." Narrated from the child’s perspective, the story conveys the reader right to the moment where one world collapses and another begins. The gaze is cinematic; we see as much as feel the movement towards the final crisis.

SECOND PRIZE: "Painted Bird" by Stephanie Lopes, Portland Community College

THIRD PRIZE: "Slash Judas" by John O’Shea, Portland Community College

Honorable Mention: "Zoran and Slobodan’s Road to Recovery" by Zoran Mrdak, Clackamas Community College

Criticism Winner

"Women of Hamlet: Ophelia and Queen Gertrude"
by Bethany Walker, Clackamas Community College

The thesis of "Women of Hamlet" is nicely focused and develops into an interesting argument. Depth and credibility is lent to the paper through a good use of secondary sources. I specifically liked how the writer incorporated a historical analysis of women in the patriarchal society of the time to give insight into Queen Gertrude's character.