2018 Creative Writing Contest Winners
The William Carlos Williams Prize, from the Academy of American Poets
Awarded to the best original poetry by a graduate student
Winner: Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
Contest judge Ginger Ko writes: These weighty poems dip and steer like a dowsing rod, confidently divining the weight of what it means to be a caretaker. Dasbach’s writing tasks readers with interrogating cultural violence, notions of the body, and the futurity of physical terrain by making them wonder, How much can poetry carry? These poems will show you.
Second Place: Davy Knittle
Contest judge Ginger Ko writes: Expansive and wry, Knittle’s peripatetic poem conducts an experiment on readers and poetry’s imperative to lunge outwards from textual containment into experience. This poem stacks words for us to watch them animatedly fling out image and sound and meaning.
Third Place: Lyn Li Che
Contest judge Ginger Ko writes: These gorgeous poems have an indescribable grace of pace—somewhere between unhurried precision and the charge of deeply-felt testament.
About the judge: Ginger Ko is the author of Motherlover (Bloof Books), Inherit (Sidebrow), Comorbid (Lark Books), and Ghosts, Models, Visions (Bloof Books). Her poetry and essays can be found in American Poetry Review, The Offing, VIDA Review, and elsewhere.
The College Alumni Society Poetry Prize
Awarded to the best original poetry by an undergraduate student.
Winner: Maya Arthur
Contest judge Ginger Ko writes: Arthur’s poems are a revelation, calling on poetic form to accommodate the legacy of violence overlaid with the reality of survival. These poems unflinchingly give readers the family, the land, and the everyday utterances, and they give readers the great gift of witness.
Second Place: Aliza Ohnouna
Contest judge Ginger Ko writes: In a single poem, Ohnouna buoyantly breaks open personal narrative and brings readers into an acrobatic engagement with word-play, memory, and humor.
Third Place: Carlos Price-Sanchez
Contest judge Ginger Ko writes: With each purposeful line, these poems surprise and gently expand the mind’s eye with startling images and the sounds of family, questioning, and possibility.
About the judge: Ginger Ko is the author of Motherlover (Bloof Books), Inherit (Sidebrow), Comorbid (Lark Books), and Ghosts, Models, Visions (Bloof Books). Her poetry and essays can be found in American Poetry Review, The Offing, VIDA Review, and elsewhere.
The Phi Kappa Sigma Fiction Prize
Awarded to the best original short story by an undergraduate student
Winner: "From Here to There" by Gloria Yuen
Contest judge Andrea Lawlor writes: What I appreciated most about Gloria Yuen’s “From Here to There” is its subtle engagement with human ideas about affect and agency; I wondered at first if the story might be an allegory of neuroatypical human experience before settling into my current reading of the piece as smart speculative fiction that necessarily reflects back contemporary questions about social norms and the construction of consciousness. Yuen’s language is economical and also expressive, and the world-building here is deft.
Second Place: "Eugene" by Isabel Kim
Contest judge Andrea Lawlor writes: Isabel Kim’s story “Eugene” is by turns funny and poignant social realism, with, for me, a compellingly urgent political critique. Kim’s a sharp observer of the relationship between setting and character, and uses thick description to show us a snapshot of Eugene’s life. I would happily have followed this narrator much further!
Third Place: “The Nature of Light” by Catherine Oksas
Contest judge Andrea Lawlor writes: I loved Catherine Oksas’s confident and even restrained use of narrative voice and dialogue in “The Nature of Light”—the first person narrator is wryly funny while also suffering, smart, and particular—all together, fresh-feeling. I appreciated the scope of the story, a small moment in the narrator’s life that gives a glimpse of their larger world of work, pain, and intimacy.
About the judge: Andrea Lawlor teaches writing at Mount Holyoke College, edits fiction for Fence, and has been awarded fellowships by Lambda Literary and Radar Labs. Their writing has appeared in various literary journals including Ploughshares, Mutha, the Millions, jubilat, the Brooklyn Rail, and Encyclopedia, Vol. II. Their publications include a chapbook, Position Papers (Factory Hollow Press, 2016), and a novel, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl (Rescue Press, 2017).
The Judy Lee Award for Dramatic Writing
Awarded to a graduate or undergraduate student for the best script (stage, screen, television, or radio)
Winner: “Love for Sale” by Seung Hyun Chung
Contest judge Tina Satter writes: This at once complex and beautifully simple one-act is a skillfully written and singular dramatic work that calls to mind the spare but direct language of playwright Richard Maxwell woven together with the gently troubling mysteriousness of a Maria Irene Fornes play. Seung Hyun Chung plays with the concepts of identity and human connection in a singular and deceptively theatrical way.
Second Place: “High Five” by Jules Lipoff
Contest judge Tina Satter writes: Jules Lipoff’s screenplay of an adolescent grappling with the reveal of his lifelong AIDS diagnosis is a humane, poignant, humorous, and contemporary take on a vitally important subject. Jules engages with a story that needs to be continually re-contextualized for stage and screen-—and Jules’s approach and writing results in a smart and moving piece of work.
Third Place: “Pizza and Pub Cookies” by Melannie Jay
Contest judge Tina Satter writes: Melanie Jay’s screenplay for a short film operates like a great short story and treats its female characters with straightforwardness, humor, and respect. In navigating the play-by-play of two people just starting to fall for each other, Jay offers a nuanced and fresh perspective that expands notions of the contemporary meet-cute paradigm in important ways.
About the judge: Tina Satter is a writer, director, and Artistic Director of the Obie-winning theater company Half Straddle based in New York City. Named an "Off Off Broadway Innovator to Watch" by TimeOut New York and winner of a Doris Duke Impact Artist Award, her plays and videos have been presented at festivals and theaters throughout the U.S, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
The Lilian and Benjamin Levy Award
Awarded to the best review by an undergraduate student of a current play, film, music release, book, or performance
Winner: Zoe Stoller, "Olivia Locher Fought the Law," review of I Fought the Law
Contest judge Adrienne Walser writes: Concise and vivid—this review provides a clear snapshot of this book, both its aesthetics and content. The focus is on text, but the engaged tone and personal anecdotes about the text’s author make me feel like I’m getting insider information.
Second Place: Amanda Silberling, “On Vulnerability in Emma Sulkowicz’s Healing Touch,” review of Emma Sulkowicz, The Healing Touch Integral Wellness Center
Contest judge Adrienne Walser writes: This review-essay carefully weaves together the personal and political, which does justice to the topic of the art show; the thoughtful voice and layered approach for providing context make this a helpful and engaging review of a difficult text.
Third Place: Emily Schwartz, “Coriolanus Lets Down Its Audience and Its Author,” review of Angus Jackson’s Coriolanus at the Barbican Theatre in London
Contest judge Adrienne Walser writes: This reviewer knows how to watch a Shakespeare play—I feel I can trust him or her to let me know whether it is worth my time to go. Has a good eye for set and production-design and is knowledgeable about what makes for good acting. Nice balance of description and critique.
About the judge: Adrienne Walser has published reviews and essays in Jacket2, Film International, Pastelegram, Art Book Review, Yes Femmes, CARLA, and Entropy, for which she is the arts & culture editor. Walser lives in Los Angeles, where she received her PhD in English at USC and is literature and education faculty at Bard College MAT. As an instructional specialist for Youth Policy Institute, she works with teachers in the city’s public high schools.
The Literary Translation Prize
Awarded to the best English-language translation of verse or prose from any language by a graduate or undergraduate student
Winner: Stephanie Diaz, “Repose,” translation of Antonia Pozzi’s “Giacere” (Italian)
Contest judge Steve Vásquez Dolph writes: Suppression of literature can take many forms, and part of the work of translation, as a kind of literary activism, is to clap back at these acts of censorship. Stephanie Diaz’s elegant, lively translation of Antonia Pozzi’s “Giacere” thrusts the reader into a young poet’s intimate recollections with startling immediacy. Crucially, it also illustrates the importance of the very first choices a translator makes: deciding what to translate, and why.
Second Place: Natalie Burke, “Then Came None,” translation of Beowulf (Old English)
Contest judge Steve Vásquez Dolph writes: It is a truth less-than-universally acknowledged that every translation has a point of view. With canonical texts—repeatedly exhumed and dissected over generations—these become more difficult to articulate in a way that feels sincere and fresh. Natalie Burke’s attentive and intelligent translation of Beowulf, lines 1591–1611, brilliantly illuminates her sharp critical perspective on this endlessly fruitful text.
Third Place: Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, translations of archival Soviet poetry translated from the Yiddish by Roman Kaminsky (Russian)
Contest judge Steve Vásquez Dolph writes: The analogies that attend translation are endless, but among the most productive is of translation as a kind of archaeology. Translators piece together shards of another world and, through their interpretive labor, give it a second (or third) life. Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach’s impactful, meticulous work in recovering, translating, and annotating these poems provocatively illustrates the role that translation plays in our familial, cultural, and political memories.
About the judge: Steve Vásquez Dolph is assistant teaching professor of Spanish in the Department of Global Studies and Modern Languages at Drexel University. His research and teaching explore the intellectual and environmental legacy of imperial Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He is the translator of three novels by the late Argentine novelist and poet Juan José Saer, and coeditor of Calque: A Journal of New Translations, recently reissued by Jacket2 at jacket2.org/reissues/calque.
The Gibson Peacock Prize for Creative Nonfiction
Awarded to the best creative nonfiction piece by an undergraduate student
Winner: Sharon Christner, “Untitled”
Contest judge Evan James writes: I found much to admire in this engrossing, sharply observed portrait of two people living on the streets near Philadelphia’s City Hall. It called to mind for me the literary journalism of writers like Lafcadio Hearn (whose prose sketches of life in nineteenth-century New Orleans I recommend to the writer), Rebecca West, and George Orwell. This is a vivid, empathetic piece of narrative nonfiction written with a remarkable eye for detail and a vital social consciousness.
Second Place: Becca Lambright, “burn”
Contest judge Evan James writes: I found this lucid, lyrical meditation on the narrator’s relationship with her mother moving and beautifully written. Told in short sections that skip gracefully through years and seasons, this personal essay is by turns comic, incantatory, somber, and searching—an open-ended and emotionally complex work.
Third Place: Isabel Kim, “Nowhere Girl”
Contest judge Evan James writes: The candid and passionate voice in this personal essay caught my ear from the first section. I admired the narrator’s complex reflections on her ongoing development as an artist and writer, told through memorable passages of self-examination and scenes filled with longing, humor, divided consciousness, anger, and joy.
About the judge: Evan James’s essays have appeared in Oxford American, The Iowa Review, Travel + Leisure, Ninth Letter, The New York Observer, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His novel Cheer Up, Mr. Widdicombe and a collection of personal essays will be published by Atria Books in 2019. He lives in New York.
The Parker Prize for Journalistic Writing
Awarded to the best newspaper or magazine article, feature story, exposé or other piece of investigative journalism (published or unpublished) by an undergraduate student
Winner: Stephanie Barron, “Losing (Birth) Control: Navigating Penn’s Hookup Culture with Uncertain Reproductive Rights”
Contest judge Tasneem Raja writes: Stephanie Barron’s timely, nuanced, well-reported piece does an excellent job of taking a large, swirling national debate and making it up close and personal for students—male and female—on her campus
Second Place: Chloe Shakin, “Fire at Bridget Foy’s”
Contest judge Tasneem Raja writes: Chloe Shakin makes us care deeply about Bridget Foy’s—the role it played in its community, the traditions it upheld, the particular slice of Philly culture that it represented—and then makes us feel like we were there the night it burned to the ground.
Third Place: Sabrina Qiao, “Work Hard, Play Harder”
Contest judge Tasneem Raja writes: Sabrina Qiao helps us understand drinking culture at Penn from a fascinating array of perspectives, from the students determined to party hard and the enforcers determined to keep them from doing so. Her details are well-chosen and steer clear of gratuitousness, and her bold prose is well-balanced by solid reporting.
About the judge: Tasneem Raja is an award-winning journalist who writes for The New Yorker online, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, and other national outlets. She also runs The Tyler Loop, a digital news and culture magazine that focuses on policy, history, and demographics in Tyler, Texas. A former senior editor at NPR, she launched a popular podcast exploring issues of identity and race with NPR’s Code Switch team. At Mother Jones, she specialized in data visualization and led a team that built the first-ever database of mass shootings in America. She’s a pioneer in the field of data-driven digital storytelling, a frequent speaker on issues of digital journalism, and a die-hard fan of alt weeklies, where she got her start as a local reporter. A native of the Philadelphia suburbs and a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, she lives in Tyler, Texas, with her husband, her stepson, and two imperious terriers.
The Creative Writing Honors Thesis Prize
Awarded to the most outstanding honors thesis
Winners:
Maya Arthur for “Comma, Virginia”; advisor: Julia Bloch
Amanda Silberling for “How to Write a Good Poem”; advisor: Michelle Taransky
Gloria Yuen for “[sic] series”; advisor: Karen Rile
About the award: Our judges have decided that each of these three projects articulates such a distinct sense of craft, form, method, and linguistic vitality that they will share this year's thesis prize. Each is a writing project that exceeds the boundaries of the undergraduate honors thesis program, that struck the panel as coherent and complete in its execution, and that shows maturity of vision and command of craft. Congratulations, Maya, Amanda, and Gloria!