MGCCC holds Creative Writing Awards Ceremony on Perkinston Campus
Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s Creative Writing Awards Ceremony was held on April 18 in the Malone Hall Auditorium on the Perkinston Campus. Nineteen students were recognized for their winning entries in five writing categories.
Each year, a professional writer is invited to speak at the ceremony. This year, Mississippi author, Dr. Philip Levin, was the guest speaker. Levin, president of the Gulf Coast Writers Association and publisher of “the Magnolia Quarterly,” the group’s annual anthology, is a prolific and published writer of novels, short stories, and nonfiction, and is an avid blogger.
Categories for the creative writing competition are free verse poetry, structured verse poetry, short stories and plays, literary and composition. Judges for each of the categories are faculty members in the Department of English at The University of Southern Mississippi.
In the Free-verse poetry category, judged by Dr. Brandi George, winners are Ethan Lucas, “Incisions,” first place; Gena Jarvis, “Hummingbird,” second place, and “Conversation,” third place; Henrietta Underwood, “Black,” honorable mention; and Celina Eusabia Esquilin, “I didn’t,” honorable mention.
The structured poetry winners, also judged by Dr. Brandi George, are Rebecca Wade, “Melvina,”first place; Tiffany Talbot, “The Black Rose,” second place; Bridget Boehm, “Untitled,” third place; and Gena Jarvis, “The Embrace,” honorable mention.
Short Story and Play winners, judged by Drs. Christopher Vineyard, Michael Barach, and Jennifer Brewington, are Jackson Loren Jones, “A Cloud in the Desert” (play), first place; Damore Morgan, “What of Loss” (short story), second place; and Caleb McClusky, “Pancake for Your Thoughts?” (short story), third place.
In the Literary category, judged by Drs. Christopher Vineyard, Michael Barach, and Jennifer Brewington, winners are Clark Welch, “Between Asian Language and American Culture: An Analysis of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club,” first place; Jeffrey Howard, “The Joy Luck Club: Comparing American and Asian Beliefs,” second place: and Caleb McClusky, “A&P Wait and See,” third place.
Composition winners, judged by Drs. Christopher Vineyard, Michael Barach, and Jennifer Brewington, are Jamie Bowman, “The Dad I Never Knew,” and Morgan Husley, “Down Comes Captain Morgan,” first place; Carmel Jones, “Longing For Marylee,” second place; Kellie Smith, “Life is A Piece of Celery” and Victoria Sneed, “Bless My Pea Picking Heart,” third place; Erika Wood, “The Accident that Changed a 12-Year-Old,” and Stephen Donnelly, “Branches of Entertainment,” honorable mention.
Winners have their writing highlighted in “illumination,” MGCCC’s creative writing journal. Cover art for the journal is “Red Creek” by Ciara Fountain. Other artwork selected for the journal includes “Serenity” by Kendrick Zimmerman, “Sitting in Chair” by Ashley Watts, “Girl” by Kathy Nguyen, “Geometric Shapes” by Joshua Olier, “Mannequin” and “Rose” by Wyatt Wood, “Tractor,” “Tree,” “Cat” and “Shells” by Ciara Fountain, “Oranges” by Chelsea Vincent, “Rat” by Lacey West, and “Figure” by DeVonna Mueller.
