Writing Contest
2013 Writing Contest Winners
The Ithaca College Department of Writing is pleased to announce the winners of the 2013 Writing Contest.
FEATURE/MAGAZINE
First Place: Caitlin Ghegan, “In Defense of Quidditch”
FICTION
First Place: Veronica Smith, “The Holy Church of Sir Hamilton Whiskerface”
Runner-Up: Caitlin O’Connell, “The Underground”
FIRST-YEAR ESSAY
First Place: Sawyer Hitchcock, “A Dream Not Yet Reached: Beyond the Civil Rights Movement”
Runner-Up: Megan Kelleher, "Underrepresentation of Women in Physics: A General Discussion and Anonymous Interviews from Ithaca College Faculty"
NONFICTION
First Place: Tim Hone, “The Great Equalizer”
Runner-Up: Kelsey Fons, “The First Step: Poverty 101”
PERSONAL ESSAY
First Place: Caitlin Ghegan, “Searching Justin”
Runner-Up: Shaunice Phillips, “The F.M. Bubble: My Experience with Suburbia”
POETRY
First Place: Natalya Cowilich
Runner-Up: Zachary Weg
PROFESSIONAL/TECHNICAL
First-Place: Robert Griffin-Nolan, “Mass Extinctions and Cloning: Should Humans Play God?”
In 2013, the Writing Department has awarded a Judges’ Prize for the first time—a grand prize given to an excellent work in any category. It goes to Veronica Smith in the Fiction category, for “The Holy Church of Sir Hamilton Whiskerface.” Veronica read from her story at Buffalo Street Books in April as part of the New Voices Festival.
In addition, Sawyer Hitchcock, Megan Kelleher, and third-place winner Christopher Kelley have been invited to read from their First-Year Essays as part of the Spring Writes Literary Festival.
No runners-up were named in the Feature/Magazine and Professional/Technical categories this year. However, because we received so many strong entries in the Nonfiction category, the judges decided to give separate awards for Personal Essay.
The winning entries will be published here shortly. And the winners and runners-up will read from their works at the Writing Contest Awards Ceremony on Thursday, May 9, at 6:00 p.m. at the Handwerker Gallery. The reading is free and open to the public. Please join us to honor these writers!
This year we received 140 entries—surely a record-breaking number! Many thanks to everyone who participated in the contest—the students who entered excellent work, and the faculty judges whose daunting task it was to read it! We look forward to celebrating more student writing in 2014.
Contact Contest Coordinator Eleanor Henderson at ehenderson@ithaca.edu with any questions.