Collage of student headshots alongside text that reads 'Creative & Performing Arts Scholarship Winners'
From top left to bottom right: Ashley Launer, Stella Van Buskirk, Kyla Ballard, Leah Stephenson, Claire Davis, Jessica Pettingil, Willow Engle, Kelly Hobbick, Nikita Wozniak, Erica Halvorson.

Annually, the English department’s creative writing program conducts a university-wide competition that seeks to award the best undergraduate work in creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Below, find this year’s deserving recipients. Congratulations to all!

Creative Nonfiction

First Place

  • Ashley Launer for “Untitled”

Second Place

  • Stella Van Buskirk for “A Tremendous Way of Being”

Third Place

  • Kyla Ballard for “A Woman-Shaped Space”

 

Fiction

First Place

  • Leah Stephenson for “Yamara”

Second Place

  • Claire Davis for “The Continuation of the End of the World”

Third Place

  • Ashley Launer for “What Could Have Happened”

 

Poetry

First Place (tie)

  • Jessica Pettingill for “Luisa,” “Roses in July,” “Walking Backwards,” “What She Learned” and “What the Desert Said”
  • Willow Engle for “twenty-two pounds shy,” “all they want is my blood, my body, my reticence,” “boulder hymn,” “anticynclonicism” and “the in-betweens”

Second Place (tie)

  • Kelly Hobbick for “Postmortem Examination of a Secondary Survivor’s Brain” and “Grapefruit Tree”
  • Nikita Wozniak for “Vanilla” and “Metamorphosis”

Third Place

  • Erica Halvorson for “[in the mountains]”