Kittay, Bowman and Hardie Competitions Cover Creative Writing Genres
Recent visits from alumni who have funded special literary awards provided an opportune occasion for the English Department to make its 2018 presentations for outstanding work in various genres of creative writing.
PICTURED LEFT: From the left are WC alumnus Alan Frankel with the Hardie Literary Analysis Essay Competition winners, Shiloh Day, Crystal Walters, Mikaela Prescott and Jen Cochran, and Dr. Bonnie Erwin, assistant professor of English.
Students garnered cash awards in the Kittay Poetry Competition, Bowman Short Fiction Contest and Cliff Hardie Literary Analysis Essay Competition.
PICTURED RIGHT: Flanked by Dr. Marta Wilkinson, associate professor of English and 1968 alumnus Seth Kittay are the Kittay Poetry Competition winners, Aaliyah Compton and Crystal Walters. Shiloh Day is not pictured.
1968 graduate Seth Kittay, who was on campus earlier this month for the President’s Advisory Council meeting, was able to share in the presentation of the poetry award he funds both as a means for encouraging students to write poetry and as an affirmation of the positive effect writing has had on his life. He is an entrepreneur and businessman in Los Angeles.
This year’s Kittay winners were: first place ($400), Aaliyah Compton for her poem, “Pink, Blue, Neither”; second place ($200), “Sixteen” by Shiloh Day; and third place ($100), “Orange” by Crystal Walters.
Also presented that day were the awards in the Bowman Short Fiction Contest, which is named in honor of the popular WC English professor from the mid-20th century. Winners include: first place ($150), “Milk” by Hillary Mitchell; second place ($100), “She Called Him Jacob” by Aaliyah Compton; and third place ($50), “Cattle Talk” by Cody Volz.
A week later, when Alan Frankel ’65 was in town for the Board of Trustees meeting, winners were announced in the Cliff Hardie Literary Analysis Essay Competition. Sadly, Hardie, an emeritus professor of English who taught at the College from 1960 to 1996, died earlier this year. Frankel has praised his friend and former professor for opening especially enlightening avenues for his creativity when he attended WC in the mid-1960s.
PICTURED RIGHT: Flanking Dr. Ursula McTaggart, associate professor of English, are Aaliyah Compton (LEFT) and Hillary Mitchell. Cody Volz is not pictured.
Prize recipients were: upper division first prize ($350), Shiloh Day, “Allegory in Nornio: The Story of Christ through the Words of Lewis”; upper division second place ($150), Crystal Walters, The Power of Storytelling: a Feminist Reading of the Arabian Nights”; lower division first place ($350), Jen Cochran, “Stowe’s Use of Women for Antislavery Involvement”; and lower division second place ($150), “snake Oil” by Mikaela Prescott.