Writing Award Review

Tonight I attended the U of M Dearborn annual writing awards ceremony and reception. The event was held on September 30th, located in the CASL building - auditorium reception room 1030.

Before entering the room where they ceremony was to take place I took a seat at the reception and enjoyed a cup of delicious apple cider. There were many snacks available, which also looked yummy, donuts, candy, crackers and cheese, but I chose not to have any.

Upon entering the auditorium I noticed a few people I recognized from comp 227, the rest of the people in attendance were unfamiliar. There were some families there to support the winners, as well as students, faculty, and of course the award winners themselves.

As Professor Potvin took the podium to start the ceremony, the chatter from the audience silenced. He began by welcoming writers, family, and friends and then started with the presentation of the awards.

As the award were presented, some of the writers chose to read exerts of their writings, while others chose to just accept their awards. Sadly, there were many writers not in attendance this evening.

Out of all of the writings 2 stood out to me. In the category of fiction – Holly Carlisle’s’ “Point of no return” was a story about abuse. Her writing made me feel like I was in the story. Again in the category of fiction – Lauren Crawford's’ “Swing on the spiral” was very interesting. The use of descriptive language made it easy to get involved with the story, when it was over I wanted to hear the rest of the story.

All in all, I enjoyed the event. The seating was kind of cramped, and it would have been nice to have a program with the winners names, but this was presented to Professor Potvin and he said this was a good idea that they may do for next years awards.

Congratulations to the winners, good luck with your future writings!

FICTION
Lauren Crawford “Swing on the Spiral” - Stephanie Bizek “The Trunk” - Holly Carlisle “Point of No Return”

POETRY
Amal Algahmi “Hitchhiker” - Carl J. Garfield “Tornado Township” - Klodiana Myftiu “He and I”

RESEARCH WRITING (two first-place winners)
Melissa Buffenn “Examining Race Through Behavioral Genetics” - Lauren Crawford “Winding the Toy of Morality: Defining the Existential and Hedonistic Morality of Anthony Burgess’ 'A Clockwork Orange' ” -
Fallon Thigpen “Infant Baptism and Heart Renewal in Charles Kingley’s 'The Water Babies' "

CREATIVE NON-FICTION
Cristi Scott “What Were You Thinking” - Stephanie Hymes “Socially Challenged” - Angelica Brown “Pretty Girls Make Graves”

FIRST-YEAR WRITING
Casaundra Hendricks “The Languages I Speak” - Zach Gielow “Schools Call the Shots” - Shahnaz Khan “Social Media vs. Traditional Media” - *Honorable Mention – Klodiana Myftiu “Albanian Americans: A Mix of Two Worlds”

HONORS WRITING
Emma Slonina “Mixed Motivations: Adolf Eichmann’s Relationship with Anti-Semitism”