Midland College honors winners of the Rebecca Watson Creative Writing ContestDecember 10, 2019

On Wednesday, December 4, the Midland College (MC) English Department hosted the Rebecca Watson Creative Writing Contest Awards Celebration at 12:00 noon in the Allison Fine Arts Building Wagner & Brown Auditorium. Awards were presented in three categories— Short Fiction, Essays and Poetry.  Selected writings from the contest will be published in Tableau, an annual MC student publication.

In the Short Fiction category, Dustin Butler won first place for “Services.”  Whitney Estep won first place in Essays for her work entitled “The Closing of the Window:  My Nana’s Fight with Alzheimer’s Disease.”  Addison Sherrod won first place for her poem entitled “Breakfast.” 

Second-place winners included Nicole Aguirre for “La Fuego Gente.” (Short Fiction), Isaac Zamarron for “Being Taught to Succeed” (Essay), and Mariana Erazo for “Relfexiones Sobre Las Despedidas” (Poetry).  Erazo also won third place in the Short Fiction category for “I Shut My Eyes.” 

Other third-place winners were Marisol Tarin for “Drawing with Patience” (Essay) and Jamie Gomez for “That Poor Girl” (Poetry). 

Fourth place and honorable mention awards were given to Joy Copeland, Sarah Crutchfield, Darrel Loewen, Coby Mount, Allyson Murillo-Rankin and Caitlyn Srader.

MC began the creative writing contest in 1975, and in 2012, the contest was renamed in honor of retired MC English Professor Rebecca Watson.  Ms. Watson judged the first contest when she was an adjunct instructor, and then she guided the contest to maturity over many years of teaching creative writing classes and directing the contest.

“We are grateful for Rebecca’s years of dedicated service to MC and her commitment to fostering creative writing among MC students,” said MC English Professor and current contest coordinator Dr. William Christopher Brown.  “Participation in the contest continues to grow.  Judges were very impressed with the quality of the entries and commended all contestants on their efforts.”

Photo:  Winners and finalists of the 2019 Midland College Rebecca Watson Creative Writing contest