(If you are using FireFox, the links above may not work. Please copy the
URL address from this page, and paste it into a different Internet browser.)

50th Anniversary Utah Original Writing Competition

2008 RESULTS

A: Novel

1st Place: Kirstin Scott, Salt Lake City
2nd Place: Will Bagley, Salt Lake City
Honorable Mention: Tom Baldwin, Cedar City

B: Nonfiction Book

1st Place: Maximilian Werner, Salt Lake City
2nd Place: M. Dane Picard, Salt Lake City

C: Collection of Poetry

1st Place: David Hawkins, Salt Lake City
2nd Place: Star Coulbrooke, Smithfield

D: Juvenile Book

1st Place: Judith E. Torres, Logan
2nd Place: Christy Monson, Ogden
Honorable Mention: Debbra B. Nance, West Jordan
Honorable Mention: Corey Willis, Centerville

E: Poetry

1st Place: Natasha Saje, Salt Lake City
2nd Place: Kim Johnson, Salt Lake City
Honorable Mention: Geoffrey Babbit, Salt Lake City
Honorable Mention: Shira Dentz, Salt Lake City

F: Short Story

1st Place: Kate Finlinson, Salt Lake City
2nd Place: Adrian Stumpp, Ogden

G: Essay

1st Place: David Hawkins, Salt Lake City
2nd Place: Nancy Roberts, Park City

ABOUT THE 50TH ANNIVERSAY COMPETITION

The Judges

A: Novels - Michelle Latiolais
Michelle Latiolais is an Associate Professor of English in the School of Humanities and co-director of the Programs in Writing at the University of California, Irvine. Her novel, Even Now, won the Commonwealth Club of California Gold Medal for Fiction in 1991.

Her books include:
A Proper Knowledge, Bellevue Literary Press (2008)
Even Now, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (1990)

B: Nonfiction Book - Lola Haskins
Lola Haskins from Gainesville, Florida, where she taught at the University of Florida. She now teaches poetry in Pacific Lutheran University's low residency MFA program. She has several collections of poetry published, but her nonfiction books include:

Not Feathers Yet: A Beginner's Guide to the Poetic Life, Backwaters Press (2007)
Solutions Beginning with A, Modernbook (2007)
"A Florida Marriage," Wild Heart of Florida, University Press of Florida (1999)  
Wind, the Grass, and Us, a collection of personal essays

C: Collection of Poems - Patricia Waters
Patricia Waters was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. She received a B.A. in history and English at what is now the University of Memphis, as well as her M.A. and Ph. D in English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She was a teacher, journalist, community activist, and taught at the University of Alabama and Tennessee Wesleyan College. Waters received funding from the Pew Foundation to attend the Sewanee Writers' Conference and was writer-in-residence at the University of Tennessee libraries from 2003-2004. She now lives in Athens, Tennessee.

Her latest book of poems is The Ordinary Sublime, Anhinga Press (2006)

D: Juvenile Book - Victoria Hanley
Victoria Hanley is a writer for young readers and has won numerous awards, including: the 2000 Colorado Book Award; the 2001 United Kingdom Carnegie Medal nominee; the 2002 New York Public Library Book for the Teen Ager: and the 2002/2003 Oklahoma Sequoyah Young Adult Book Awards Master List.

Her novels include:

The Light of the Oracle, David Fickling Books (2005)
The Healer's Keep, Laurel-Leaf Books (2005)
The Seer and the Sword, Laurel-Leaf Books (2003)

E: Poetry - B.J. Buckley
B.J. Buckley is a poet and writer who has worked in Arts-in-Schools programs throughout the West and in Alaska for over thirty years. She received a Wyoming Arts Council Literature Fellowship, the Poets & Writers Award in Poetry, the Rita Dove Poetry Prize, and the Robert Penn Warren Narrative Poetry Prize from the Cumberland Poetry Review. Buckley was selected to receive a fellowship grant for a writing residency at the Vermont Studio Center in 2004 and her poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies.

Her books include:
Artifacts: Poems, Willow Bee (1987)
Moon Horses and the Red Bull, with with co-author Dawn Senior-Trask, Pronghorn Press (c. 2007/2008)

F: Short Story - Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner
Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner is the recipient of Best Short Fiction awards from Carolina Quarterly, Shenandoah, Sunstone, and Weber Studies, and has been published in The Best of Writers at Work, In Our Lovely Deseret, and other anthologies. His novel, Dancing Naked, received the highest literary awards possible from the Utah Arts Council and the Utah Book Award.

Dancing Naked, Signature Books (1999)

G: Essay - Rick Campbell
Rick Campbell is the director of Anhinga Press and the Anhinga Prize for Poetry. He holds a B.A. from the University of Florida, and M.A. from the University of Wyoming, and a Ph.D. from Florida State University. His first full-length book, Setting The World In Order, won the Walt McDonald Prize. Campbell has won an NEA Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and two fellowships from the Florida Arts Council. His poems and essays have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, The Tampa Review, Southern Poetry Review, Puerto Del Sol, Prairie Schooner, and other journals. He teaches English at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida, and lives in Gadsen County with his wife and daughter.

Campell's books include:
Dixmont, Autumn House (2008)
The Traveler's Companion, Black Bay Books, (2004)
Setting The World In Order, Texas Tech (2001)

About the Annual Original Writing Competition:

Started in 1958, the Annual Original Writing Competition identifies and awards Utah writers for works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in the form of short stories, essays, poems, and full-length manuscripts. Submissions must be original works and unpublished at the time of entry. Entries will be reviewed in a blind process by seven judges selected from outside of Utah. Past award winners have included Ron Carlson, David Lee, Katharine Coles, Ken Brewer, Pam Houston, Lyman Hafen, Margaret I. Rostkowski, Lance Larsen, John Bennion, Scott Cairns, Rod Carney, and Susan Howe.

If you have any questions about Utah's Annual Original Writing Competition, contact Guy Lebeda, glebeda@utah.gov, (801) 236-7553.