Midland College honors winners of the Rebecca Watson Creative Writing ContestDecember 05, 2017

On Thursday, November 16, 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 McCormick Gallery. 

Awards were presented in three categories—Fiction, Non Fiction and Poetry. 

In the Fiction category, Connor Kendall won first place for “Eyes.”  Kendall also won Honorable Mention in the Non Fiction category.  Dana Fletcher one first place in Non-Fiction for her work entitled “Sapling.”  Rachel Brewer won first place in Poetry for her poem entitled “I am from Houston.” 

Second-place winners included Sheridan Frost for “Known. Likely. Suspected.” (Fiction), Sheridan McCray for “Error Number Six” (Non Fiction), and Neli Balderas for “Migration” (Poetry). 

Dustin Butler won third place and two Honorable Mention awards in the Fiction category.  Other third place winners were Lauren Smith (Non Fiction) and Liam Doria (Poetry).

Honorable Mention was also given to Parker Killian, Emily Spaulding, Enia Agaj, Cylie Mebane, Rachel Barner, Alexander Ferries, Jennifer Garcia, Kylie Jones and Jordan Saldana.

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 Brenden Egan.  “Participation in the contest continues to grow.  Judges were very impressed with the quality of the entries and commended all contestants on their efforts.”

Selected writings from the contest will be published in Tableau, an annual MC student publication produced cooperatively through the departments of Communication and English.

The Rebecca Watson Creative Writing Contest is one of two writing contests hosted by the MC English department for students.  The Hilda Simmons Levitt Poetry Contest is held each spring.  Egan encourages all students enrolled in an English class to participate in this contest when the call for submissions is announced during the spring semester.