2023 Contest Winners List

Social Change
1st Place	LAURA	WHITTINGTON
2nd Place	BARBARA MARIE	MINNEY
3rd Place	DONALD	BECHER
HM	JIM	KOENIG

Non-Fiction
1st Place	NANCY	MERICAL
2nd Place	SHERYL	BROWNE
3rd Place	CONNIE	KINSEY
HM	MASON	JACK

Short Story
1st Place	KARIN	FULLER
2nd Place	LOUIS	SCHLESINGER
3rd Place	KATHLEEN	FURBY
HM	KATHLEEN	FURBY

Children's Book
1st Place	JANET	SMART
2nd Place	SUSAN	NICHOLAS
3rd Place	DONALD	BECHER
HM	PATTY	PECKHAM

Pandemic
1st Place	LAURA	WHITTINGTON
2nd Place	JOHN	WIMER
3rd Place	KATHLEEN	FURBY
HM	KATHLEEN	FURBY

Short Poetry
1st Place	IAN	WILLIAMS
2nd Place	JOHN	YOST
3rd Place	MARY ANN	HONAKER
HM	JAMIE	JOHNSON

Long Poetry
1st Place	JIMMY	LONG
2nd Place	DON	NARKEVIC
3rd Place	BONNIE	PROUDFOOT
HM	JENNA	LAPOINTE

Book Length Prose
1st Place	BROWNE	SHERYL
2nd Place	LESLIE	KENNEY
3rd Place	GEORGE	LIES
HM	Alan	Simms

Appalachian Writing
1st Place	KARIN	FULLER
2nd Place	CHERYL	KULA
3rd Place	DONALD	BECHER
HM	KATHLEEN	FURBY

Stage Play
1st Place	JONATHAN	JOY
2nd Place	JEREMIAH	MUNSEY
3rd Place	JONATHAN	JOY
HM	NATHANIEL	PATTERSON

Emerging Poetry
1st Place	LAURA	FORD
2nd Place	DUNCAN	CROWLEY
3rd Place	TIERNEY	CHAPMAN
HM	MEGAN	HUMPHREYS

Emerging Prose
1st Place	LESLIE	KENNEY
2nd Place	ROBIN	BLAKEMAN
3rd Place	J.D.	WILSON
HM	KATHY	SHOOL

People's Choice Poetry - Friday
1st Place	WILMA	ACREE
2nd Place	MELINDA	TAULER
3rd Place	LISA	HAYES-MINNEY

People's Choice Prose - Friday
1st Place	?
2nd Place	MARION	KEE
3rd Place	SUZANNE	ALEXANDER

People's Choice Poetry - Saturday
1st Place	NANCY	MERICAL
2nd Place	BRAD	MILLS
3rd Place	DEREK	GILMAN

People's Choice Prose - Saturday
1st Place	JANET	SMART
2nd Place	MELINDA	TAULER
3rd Place	DEVONNE	BROWN

Writers' Wall Poetry
1st Place	BRAD	MILLS
2nd Place	JANET	SMART
3rd Place	CHERYL	DENISE

Writers' Wall Prose
1st Place	M LYNNE	SQUIRES
2nd Place	JESSICA	NELSON
3rd Place	KATHIE	GILTINAN

NMV1
1st place	CHARLES	DAVIS
2nd place	THOMAS	GILL
3rd place	KAMRYN	SIMS
HM	ELLIOTT	KIERAN

NMV 2
1st place	ELLIOT	AKE
2nd place	CLARA	SWANK
3rd place	TYLER	MEADOWS
HM	SOPHIA	CASTRO

NMV3
1st place	TRISTA	STEINEMANN
2nd place	TIANA	TAUBER
3rd place	GRACELYN	PAYNE
HM	TRISTA	STEINEMANN

Contests

The 2023 WVW writing competition will be open for entries January 2, 2023. Here are the electronic entry forms for the Adult Contest and the New Mountain Voices (K-12) Contest.

We strongly prefer electronic entries. If you must use a mailed form, here is the Adult form and the New Mountain Voices form.

Even if you're familiar with our contest, a quick review of the Frequently Asked Questions is a good idea.

Competition Category Descriptions:

#___ Appalachian Writing (up to 5,000 words) Prose - fiction or non-fiction.

#___ Long Poetry (One poem up to four pages in length) Poetry in any form.

#___Short Poetry (Up to 20 lines) Poetry in any form.

#___ Short Story (up to 5,000 words) Prose fiction.

#___ Nonfiction (Up to 5,000 words) Prose article, essay, or memoir.

#___ Emerging Writers Prose (Up to 5,000 words) Specify fiction or nonfiction.

#___ Emerging Writers Poetry (one poem up to four pages) The F. Ethan Fischer Memorial Poetry Award.

#___ Children’s Books Text only. Pictures or illustrations (if included) will not be judged

#___ Special Topic: The Pandemic (up to 5,000 words) Poetry, prose fiction, or non-fiction

#___ Social Change (Up to 5,000 words) The Pearl S. Buck Award Fiction, Nonfiction, or poetry on a social change topic.

#___ Stage Play (Up to 30 pages in standard stage play format. If full play is over 30 pages, send additional 1-page synopsis of whole play.) The Joe McCabe Memorial Script Award.

PLEASE NOTE: Entry fees for the category below is $20.

#___ Book Length Prose (Up to 7,500 words and a 1-page synopsis)

2023 Contest Judges’ Bios

	Appalachian Writing – Jayne Moore Waldrop is the author of Retracing My Steps and Pandemic Lent: A Season in Poems, both published by Finishing Line Press. Her linked story collection, Drowned Town, was published in 2021 by University Press of Kentucky through a partnership with Hindman Settlement School. Her debut children’s picture book, A Journey in Color: The Art of Ellis Wilson, is forthcoming from Shadelandhouse Modern Press. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Anthology.
	Short Poetry – Mary Barbara Moore’s five poetry books include Dear If, The Book Of Snow, the prize-winning chapbooks Amanda and the Man Soul, and Eating the Light. Poems appeared lately in Birmingham Poetry Review, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, NELLE, Terrain, Asheville Review, and more. She was the winner of NELLE’s first Three Sisters’ Award and has placed in contests at Terrain, Asheville Poetry Review, and Nimrod.
	Long Poetry – Marianne Worthington edits Still: The Journal, an online literary magazine she co-founded in 2009. Her work appears in Oxford American, Sweet: A Literary Confection, CALYX, and Chapter 16 among other places. She co-edited Piano in a Sycamore: Writing Lessons from the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop and is author of a poetry chapbook. Her poetry collection is The Girl Singer (University Press of Kentucky, 2021), winner of the Weatherford Award for Poetry. She grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, and lives in southeast Kentucky.
	Short Story – Jim Minick is the author or editor of seven books, including the award-winning Fire Is Your Water and The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family. His work has appeared in many publications, including the New York Times, Poets & Writers, Tampa Review, Shenandoah, Orion, Oxford American, and The Sun. His newest book is Without Warning: The Tornado of Udall, Kansas, a nonfiction work forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press in 2023.
	Non-fiction – Charles Ryan was born a small-town West Virginia boy in Keyser, WV. His first job as a disc jockey for a local radio station led to his initial career in journalism after attending West Virginia University. He moved to Charleston and enjoyed an exceptional career in television news before deciding to make the leap to public relations and advertising by starting Charles Ryan Associates in 1974. He is the author of Death on Staunton Road: The Violent Murder of Charleston Daily Mail Owner Juliet Staunton Clark.
	Emerging Prose – Tony Viola is a Professor of English at Marshall University where he teaches literature and creative writing. His debut novel is All Lies Begin with Truth. His short fiction publications have appeared in Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing, Gulf Coast, The Connecticut Review, Aethlon: Journal of Sports Literature, and Five 2 One Magazine. One story was listed in “100 Other Distinguished Stories,” Best American Short Stories and another received a Pushcart Prize nomination.
	Emerging Poetry – Dr. Chris Green directs Berea College’s Loyal Jones Appalachian Center and lived in West Virginia for nine years, during which time he edited Coal: A Poetry Anthology and authored Rushlight: Poems. Chris is dedicated to fostering words that live in and come from hearts/minds/spirits of each person. He has taught poetry (the reading and writing thereof) to community groups, K-12 students, inmates, college students and others. He received his MFA in 1996 from Indiana University.
	Social Change - Neema Avashia is the daughter of Indian immigrants, and was born and raised in southern West Virginia. She has been a teacher in the Boston Public Schools since 2003. Her first book, Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place, was published by West Virginia University Press in March. It has been called “A timely collection that begins to fill the gap in literature focused mainly on the white male experience” by Ms. Magazine.
	Children’s Book – Anna Egan Smucker is the author of nine award-winning books including No Star Nights, Golden Delicious: A Cinderella Apple Story, Brother Giovanni's Little Reward: How the Pretzel Was Born, and Fallingwater: The Building of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Masterpiece, a picture book about Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic house, co-authored with Marc Harshman.
	Stage Play – Michael Murdock is a professional actor, writer, director, and member of the professional actors union, Actor's Equity Association (AEA). He is also the current Artistic Director of Alchemy Theatre in Huntington, West Virginia. He attended Ohio University in Athens, OH, where he double-majored in Theatre and Journalism, with a minor in English. He finished his degree at Marshall University. Mike was one of the Resident Directors at Arts Resources for the Tri-State (ARTS) for five years. He also created The West Virginia Shakespeare Festival (WVSHAKES) in 2018. He is a published author, writing the novel The Dragon Ruby with Herschel Jeffrey, which will be re-released soon, and he has won several playwriting contests and screenplay awards.
	Special Topic – Life in the Pandemic – Mary Ladd is the author of the Wig Diaries: An Irreverent Cancer Book, with illustrator Don Asmussen. She started writing at the San Francisco Chronicle and later collaborated with Anthony Bourdain. In 2020, she published a pandemic writing prompts book. Mary regularly presents her work at Litquake, the Community of Writers, Berkeley Poetry Festival and Wildfire magazine events. Her writing is in several anthologies, as well as Playboy, Health, KQED, and elsewhere.
	NMV1 (K-5) - Diane Tarantini hails from Huntington, West Virginia, but now calls Morgantown home. Shei earned a Bachelor’s in Journalism from West Virginia University, and later an MFA in creative nonfiction from Converse College. Her recently published children’s book, The Brave Knight, was chosen to be distributed to each of the 7,000 foster children in West Virginia. Her story Black Lungs was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
	NMV 2 (6-8) - Audrey Stanton Smith is a freelance journalist, substitute teacher, and recipient of a first-place 2022 United Methodist Association of Communicators award for non-fiction writing. She holds a 1997 bachelor’s degree in journalism from West Virginia University and has had three original short plays performed by local theaters. She currently serves as interim editor of Response, the official international magazine of United Women in Faith, and is almost finished writing her first novel.
	NMV3 (9-12) – Karin Fuller is a long-time newspaper columnist for the Sunday Gazette-Mail (Charleston, WV). Her columns have been selected as Best in the U.S. by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. She has been published in Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, and Woman’s World, among others. Although she currently resides in Atlanta, Karin and her fiancé are renovating a 110-year-old warehouse in Hinton, WV, with plans to move there in 2023.