2004 Greensboro Awards Winners
.
SALLY SMITS, 1st Place Poetry
Out of 118 poetry entries, Sally Smits of Wilmington, NC was named the winner
by poetry judge Mark Smith-Soto for her poems "postcard," "wing into cloud," "brief history," "milkweed" and "younger daughters" Ms. Smits received $500 for her winning poetry.
PATRICIA M. WALKER, 1st Place Short Fiction
Patricia M. Walker of Raleigh, NC was the top selection
from a field of 123 short fiction entries. Her winning entry was selected by short fiction judge Orson Scott Card. Walker received $500 for her winning short fiction.
The top ten finalists for each award were
selected after multiple readings and
weeks
of deliberation by many members of
The Writers'
Group of the Triad who sponsored the
contest.
These ten were then sent to the final judges
who picked
the award winners. June Willson Read, PhD, was general contest coordinator for the Greensboro Awards 2004.Catherine Ashley-Nelson coordinated the poetry contest and Mary Webb coordinated the fiction competition. Corporate sponsors of the 2004 Greensboro Awards were A Bolder Image, 301 Pomona Drive, and UPS Store, West Market, both of Greensboro.
Top finalists for poetry include Andrea Watson (Taos, NM) Second Place; and Bill Griffin (Elkin, NC) Third Place. Other finalists include: Karen Harryman (Burbank, CA), Laurie Klein (Deer Park, WA), Steve Lautermilch (Kill Devil Hills, NC), Marjorie Norris (Buffalo, NY), Brooke Pacy (Waldoboro, ME), Betty Ritz Rogers (Greensboro, NC).
Orson Scott Card named Gregg Cusick (Raleigh, NC) as Second Place winner and Karen E. Dodd (New Bern, NC) Third Place for Short Fiction. Other
finalists in the short fiction category of the 2004 Greensboro Awards include:
Scott Burkhead (Apex, NC); James Cannoy (Trinity, NC); Sara Claytor (Elk Park, NC); Jeff Collins (Greensboro, NC); Tom Glenn (Columbia, MD); and G.H.S. Mueller (Boone, NC); and Maureen A. Sherbondy (Raleigh, NC).
The winners and finalists were recognized
at the WGOT Annual Meeting held at
the Greensboro
Central Library, 219 North Church Street,
Greensboro, NC. Selections from the
winning
entries and area finalists were read
at that
time.
Sally Smits, winner of the poetry award, is originally from Denver, CO, and has been published in the magazines Penwood Review, Seedhouse, and Northwords. Her nonfiction also will be included in a new women's studies book titled, "Home is Where You're Going." Sally keeps falling in love with places - Scotland, Montreal, Oregon, Chicago - which has made settling in one place tricky. Recently, she spent two years in Baltimore as part of Teach for America. She is currently an MFA student in the Creative Writing program at University of North Carolina at Wilmington, as well as an assistant poetry editor on their forthcoming literary journal, Ecotone.
Short Fiction winner Patricia M. Walker was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1949 and lived there until 1974. In 1971 she graduated magna cum laude with honors in History from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. In 1994 she received her Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from North Carolina State University. She has been a school teacher, executive assistant, purchasing manager, corporate secretary and most recently a general securities principal for an investment firm. Patricia is a member of the North Carolina Writers' Network and has participated in the Duje University Novel-in-Progress class for over seven years during which time she has completed one novel and begun another. Her short story Grace was published in the Spring, 2003 issue of The Bishop's House Review.
Our distinguished judges included Orson Scott Card, author of more than 50 books. Nobody had ever won the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel two years in a row until Card received them in 1986 and 1987. France awarded Heartfire its highest science fiction award, Le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire 2000. Card has written two books on writing: Character and Viewpoint and How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy and his works have been translated into seventeen languages. A dozen of his plays have been produced in regional theatre and he has written hundreds of audio plays and scripts for the family market. He teaches writing courses, including his Literary Bootcamp at UNC-Greensboro and Utah Valley State University.
The poetry competition was judged by Mark Smith-Soto a Greensboro, NC poet whose poetry has appeared in many literary journals including Kenyon Review, Poetry East, Literary Review and Carolina Quarterly. A finalist for Nimrod's Pablo Neruda Prize, he also won the NC Writers' Network Persephone Prize chapbook competition (2000) and the Harperprints/Randall Jarrell chapbook competition (2002). He has a full-length collection of poetry, Our Lives Are Rivers (University Press of Florida, 2003). Five of his short plays have been produced.
