GREENEVILLE – Two up-and-coming authors captured the top awards honoring the best student writing in four genres during the annual Curtis ’28 and Billie Owens Literary Prize ceremony Thursday, April 11, at Tusculum University.
Dr. Monic Ductan, second from left, stands with honored students, left to right, Zach Mitchell, Kiersten Paxton and Tate Haugen.
Junior Kiersten Paxton won in the drama, fiction and nonfiction categories for the titles “A Royal Kill,” “Green is Blue” and “Kids Can See,” respectively. Senior Zach Mitchell was victorious in poetry for “My Night at Ford Theater.”
Paxton and Mitchell also earned honorable mention in poetry and nonfiction, respectively for “The Dogs” and “The Nature of Resurrection.” Junior Tate Haugen was the other writer who received recognition with an honorable mention in poetry for “Language Barrier.” All of the recipients are English majors, concentrating in creative writing, at Tusculum.
“We are extremely proud of Kiersten, Zach and Tate, who are dedicated young writers committed to developing high-quality prose,” said Kelsey Trom, associate professor of English. “They spend multiple hours in our writing lab building their skills and show considerable promise in this profession with the product they have already created. We are also grateful to the many other writers who submitted their work and encourage them to continue growing in their craft.”
The competition was open to all Tusculum students. Judging the entries was Dr. Monic Ductan, an award-winning writer and author of the recently published short story collection “Daughters of Muscadine.”
Paxton said receiving the awards was a confidence boost for her as a writer. She is interested in becoming a full-time creative writer, and her favorite forms are nonfiction and poetry.
“It’s also really heartwarming to know that other people – especially a successful author – like something that I wrote,” she said. “That’s why I like these events so much because the judge says what he or she liked about the story.”
Kelsey Trom addresses the audience.
Dr. Monic Ductan speaks during the awards ceremony.
Paxton described some of the different processes she uses in the three genres she won.
“There are different methods with each one,” Paxton said. “Usually, if I am writing nonfiction, there will be a memory in my head that I have been thinking about a lot recently, and I turn that into a creative piece. For fiction, it’s mostly like some of the stories I read or see on TV. I’ll take aspects of a character that I like and think, ‘What if they were put into this situation?’ I then write about that. For writing drama, it is what I would think is funny to watch and be played out. In my mind, it’s a lot of ‘70s sitcom. ‘What’s Up, Doc?’ is something that I think about a lot that I consider really funny and theatrical.”
Mitchell, who has already written two novels and is working on a third, said he had a big smile on his face when he won. Like Paxton, he views it as a shot in the arm for his confidence. He said Dr. Ductan expressed the same feeling when he interviewed her for a profile that will be published on the website of The Tusculum Review, the university’s international literary journal. He said she told him that the award helped her with her future writing.
“Getting this affirmation is rewarding in showing that what you are working on is good in someone else’s eyes – and a professional at that,” Mitchell said. “It’s a big plus. I’m going to keep going.”
Mitchell is currently envisioning pursuing a master’s degree. One field he considers an option as a profession is teaching, but he has also heard about other possibilities in the Media Writing class he is taking this semester.
“I would love to have the opportunity to write full time, but that’s probably down the road,” he said. “You don’t get that opportunity unless you’re hitting the best seller list or your books are selling so much. It’s a very competitive industry, and it’s really subjective to a certain degree.”
Before announcing her selections, Dr. Ductan read a portion of “Daughters of Muscadine,” which is one of the books Trom has read with the students in her Introduction to Short Fiction class. “Daughters of Muscadine” is a book about working-class Black women in a small, Georgia town. Trom praised Dr. Ductan’s writing during Thursday’s ceremony.
Dr. Monic Ductan, left, signs a copy of her short story collection “Daughters of Muscadine.”
Student Zach Mitchell introduces Dr. Monic Ductan.
“I’m really delighted to have Monic with us,” Trom said. “Students had nothing but glowing things to say about her stories. They really perked after reading all of these classic stories and reading Monic’s work. Among the comments were they were some of the most immersive stories that we read this semester – that we really felt like we were there with the narrators of the stories. They also noted the real beauty of the natural environment that was always in the background of these characters’ lives.”
Dr. Ductan, who is from southern Appalachia, is an associate professor of English at Tennessee Tech University. Her impressive résumé includes anthologized works, short fiction in journals, creative nonfiction and poetry. Her writing has appeared in “Oxford American,” “Shenandoah,” “South Carolina Review,” “Appalachian Review” and several other journals.
After the reading from “Daughters of Muscadine,” Dr. Ductan shared her perspective on a wide array of subjects as she answered questions from the audience. She dispensed further insight during a follow-up session with Tusculum students on Friday, April 12.
Curtis Owens was a prize-winning writer and professor, who held a variety of administrative assignments at Pace University. He was a 1928 graduate of Tusculum, where he played football, debated, won an award for philosophy and two awards for poetry as well as wrote the class poem for the 1928 annual. He and his wife, Billie, established the prize in their name at Tusculum in 1995 to highlight creativity and talent among aspiring student writers.
Additional information about Tusculum’s English program and creative writing concentration are available at https://site.tusculum.edu/english-2/. To learn more about the university, please visit www.tusculum.edu.