Awards
give writers prestige
$3,000 given to non-fiction, fiction
winners
By Jessica Sanders
Staff Reporter
Jonis Agees soothing voice filled the room as
she described a teachers unusual love affair with
a mysterious man named Darwin.
It seemed Darwin was a lily of the field,
Agee said. And the rest of us were just weeds
grasping for purchase, knocking down anything in our
way.
Agee, a writer and English professor at University of
Nebraska at Lincoln, read excerpts from Acts of
Love on Indigo Road and her unfinished novel at
the 2003 Creative Writing Awards ceremony Thursday night.
As a writer you work alone, Agee said. This
is the moment where you can see if anyones listening.
Charlotte Hogg, an English professor, said $3,000 in
award money was given to 27 student and alumni winners
during the ceremony.
Agee said winning a writing contest when she was a young
writer was a great boost to her confidence.
It lets you know that someones listening,
that you are saying something in a way that is communicating
to other people, Agee said.
Michelle Thompson, a senior English major, said she
was excited to win the Siddie Joe Johnson Poetry Award
and second place in the Lilla Thomas Award contest.
I have always enjoyed writing and Ive been
writing for a while, Thompson said.
Lauren Kelley, a junior English major and winner of
the Womens Wednesday Club Merit Award, said she
did not know until the ceremony what she had won.
I took a creative writing class last semester,
Kelley said. Thats the only time Ive
written creatively in my life.
Senior English major Amanda Emerson won the Lorraine
Sherley Prize for a writing portfolio and second place
in the Kurt Lee Hornbeck Poetry Award contest.
Its fun to get recognized for your writing and
also win money, Emerson said.
No winners were chosen for the Multimedia Writing Award,
the Mortar Board Prize for Literary Criticism and the
Graduate Fiction Prize.
Sometimes we dont have any entries and sometimes
the judge decides the caliber was not what we were hoping
for, Hogg said.
Entries are judged by contest sponsors, faculty, graduate
students and volunteers, Hogg said.
Jessica
Sanders
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Sarah
Krebs/Staff reporter
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Guest
author Jonis Agee, author and English professor
at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, read
excerpts from her book Acts of Love on Indigo
Road at the 2003 Creative Writing Award
ceremony.
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