Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
On Thursday, Feb. 22, more than 60 people crowded into the Soderberg Auditorium to hear the winning poetry and fiction pieces from the 2006-2007 Grady Award winners.
In memory of Steven Grady, class of 1934, Roy J. Gavin established The Steven Grady Perpetual Endowment Fund for Creative Writing. The endowment funds the annual creative writing competitions. The faculty of the English department award two categories of poetry and fiction, separately in both the undergraduate and graduate divisions.
In the undergraduate division, first place for poetry went to Polaris Garfield. Ashlyn Giles took second place. Jason DiGioia was awarded first place for fiction, with Megan Arsenault taking second place.
In the graduate division, there were three winners. Second place in both poetry and fiction went to Nicholas Mohlmann. The first place winners were Kiera Seekins for poetry and Robert Weibush for fiction.
Garfield, a senior, said when she got the e-mail, “I’m not going to lie, I was jumping up and down.”
Arsenault’s winning piece was “A Fisherman’s Tale.” Arsenault, who grew up in a small town called Owls Head, Maine, said the story came from her life there, including the lives of the local fishermen.
According to Giles, her love and her neighbors inspired the winning piece, titled “Pacing in Words.”
DiGioia’s piece, “Litochondriac,” was motivated by a dynamic sentence he wrote for class. He gave the credit to David Kress, his creative writing professor, for having given the assignment in the first place.
Seekins was motivated by many of her peers in a poetry writing seminar. “With sharing there’s always a risk, but it was worth it,” Seekins said.
Mohlmann, a native of Richmond, Va., displayed his southern roots in his pieces. Mohlmann wanted to bring his southern view and voice to Maine.
Weibush was the last person to share his work. His piece was titled, “Isn’t That What I Never Needed?” but he read a more current work instead. “I was motivated by the shortage of propane,” Weibush said.
