USU Creative Writing and Art Contest Announces 2024 Winners

USU’s Creative Writing Contest has named the winners in its 31st annual competition, recognizing the best creative work by USU students.

Open to all USU undergraduate students from all departments and disciplines, the contest awards top writers of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction, as well as visual artists in drawing, painting and photography. Each category received the blind review of expert judges drawn from the USU and Cache Valley arts community.

On her winning fiction piece, “Tashi’s Vows,” winner Amber McCuen says: “I wrote the short story ‘Tashi's Vows’ in a fiction writing class, which was specifically focused on writing fiction based in research. In studying Tibetan Buddhism before I wrote the story, I watched documentaries, checked out books from multiple libraries, and at one point had 80 tabs of web pages and articles open. My biggest desires in writing this story were to depict everything as accurately as possible, from the physical monastery to the culture of its residents, and to tell a human, heartfelt story.”

Gregory Dille’s essay, “Ventriloquist,” was chosen as the nonfiction winner.

“Growing up rural meant relying on family and the natural environment for company,” Gregory says. “Being so immersed in the natural world meant constant, predictable change — seasonal weather, migrating birds, and so on. Certain change, I learned at a young age, was not predictable, however. ‘Ventriloquist’ was my attempt at capturing that sudden, unpredictable feeling.”

Noelani Hadfield was named poetry winner for selected poems “trial by fire,” “patience is a virtue that rips me apart,” and “metaphysics of being.”

“For me, my writing is always rooted in my own experiences,” Noelani says. “Poetry, however, is this great medium where you can fictionalize and transpose in order to get to the true ‘heart’ of the poem. All of these poems are me trying to explore something within myself — things that are in all of us.”

On their winning piece “Bittersweet Nightshade,” writer and artist Basil Payne says: “I made this art piece in conversation with a poem I did over the summer for a project I worked on. Most of this piece comes from nature — the plant in the middle is a bittersweet nightshade plant I preserved with a plant press, and the splotchy red, purple, and wine background was made from different berries I foraged. Through this piece, I wanted to share how I see the world. I saw myself in that plant, a tattered, hole-punched weed on the side of the road, and I thought it was beautiful.”

This is the eighth year the contest has partnered with USU’s international undergraduate literary journal, Sink Hollow. The winning entries will be published next month in a special contest issue, giving this work an international audience.

The winners will also get the chance to share their work locally when they will give a reading at Helicon West.

“The Helicon reading of the contest winners’ work is always one of the best nights of the year on campus,” said Contest Director Charles Waugh. “We get to celebrate not only the winning work, but also our whole, vibrant writing community here at USU and in Cache Valley.”

The Helicon West reading of the contest winning work will 7 p.m. April 25 at the new Logan Library in Community Room A. As always, Helicon is free, uncensored, open to the public, and will include an open-mic session.

2024 USU Creative Writing and Art Contest Winners

ART

• First: Basil Payne, “Bittersweet Nightshade.”
• Second: Cassity Whitby, “Tour Guide Ruth.”
• Third: Abigail Smith, “Through the Looking Glass.”
• Honorable Mention: Lily Webb, “Facing the Storm; Summer Reign.”
• Honorable Mention: Cassity Whitby, “June With Adreann and the Kids; November Blue Light.”
• Honorable Mention: Basil Payne, “A dream which had heard me weep; Juniper.”
• Honorable Mention: K’Lee Perry, “Leaves and Eaves; Patchwork Sun.”
• Honorable Mention: Abigail Smith, “Taking Leave.”
• Honorable Mention: Madileine Malo, “Circles.”
• Honorable Mention: Amber McCuen, “Goliath.”
• Honorable Mention: Brianna Pickering, “Ode to Ophelia; Keeping Watch.”
• Honorable Mention: Bria Dean “Seven Circles; Inclusion Matters.”

FICTION

• First: Amber McCuen, “Tashi’s Vows.”
• Second: Megan Boyce, “The Magic Lantern.”
• Third: Ashleigh Sabin, “The Great Unconformity.”

NONFICTION

• First: Gregory Dille, “Ventriloquist.”
• Second: Nick Carlson, “A Recipe for Funeral Casserole.”
• Third: Clarissa Casper, “Flash Flood.”

POETRY

• First: Noelani Hadfield, “trial by fire; patience is a virtue that rips me apart; metaphysics of being.”
• Second: Basil Payne, "Icarus as God; love-dewed meadows; Monstrous belief.”
• Third: James Ashby, “Faces; Sanctuary; I Still Have Die to Cast, just not anymore for you.”