The Wytheville Chautauqua Festival’s Creative Writing Day honored winners of the 2023 Creative Writing Contest on June 23 at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church.
The ceremony also featured Suzanne Stryk as guest author.
Stryk is an artist who finds equal fascination in the natural world and the visual arts. Her conceptual nature paintings and assemblages have appeared in solo exhibitions throughout the United States, and her portfolios and related writings have been featured in Orion, Terrain.org, Ecotone, and the Kenyon Review.
She is the recipient of a George Sugarman Foundation grant and a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship.
Between 2011-13, she logged hundreds of hours by car, foot, and waterway to create “Notes on the State of Virginia,” a series of mixed media assemblages that revel in the beauty and history of Virginia’s diverse natural and culturally rich regions. While the artwork toured the state in museums and galleries, Stryk got to work describing the experience, which became the book The Middle of Somewhere: An Artist Explores the Nature of Virginia (Trinity University Press, 2022). She shared insights from her book and process at the ceremony.
Also during the Creative Writing Day Ceremony, former committee chair and current board member Rhonda Catron Wood gave a few words of appreciation in memory of JoAnne Wilson, a founding member of the creative writing committee. Wilson recently passed away.
The Chautauqua Writing Contest fosters creative writing in three age groups (grades 6-9, 10-12, and adult) and three genres (nonfiction, fiction, and poetry). Cash prizes were awarded for the top three entries in each group.
The winners were:
Adult Nonfiction: first place—Rebecca Adcock; second place—Bobby Angles; third place—Patricia Smiley.
Adult Fiction: first place—Roger Dean Grubb; second place—Nancy Wade; third place—Swade Best; Honorable Mention: Tammy Cupp.
Adult Poetry: first place—Tammy Cupp; second place—Chrissie Anderson Peters; third place—Tina Cunningham.
Grades 10-12 Nonfiction: first place—Parker Danielle Bentley.
Grades 10-12 Fiction: first place—Virid Glass; second place— Jaden Privett
Grades 10-12 Poetry: first place—Ilse Primm; second place—Oscar Montgomery; third place—Makaela Umberger.
Grades 6-9 Nonfiction: no entries
Grades 6-9 Fiction: first place—Shiloh Burton; second place—Abigail Hillenberg; third place—Leah Michelle Moore
Grades 6-9 Poetry: first place—Brooke Jones; second place—Christian Locklear; third place—Payton Nester.
This year’s contest judges included Tempi Hale, Northeast State Community College; Rosa Lee Jude, Wytheville Convention and Visitors Bureau; Rob Merritt, a retired English professor from Bluefield College; April Asbury, Radford University; Zach Cooley, Wytheville Enterprise Columnist; Jennifer Groseclose, Wythe-Grayson Regional Library; Rosie Tomiak, University of Virginia student; and Marcella Taylor, Town of Wytheville Department of Museums.
Chautauqua Creative Writing Day Committee members include Julia Tomiak (chair), Jim Minick (vice-chair), Deanna Bradberry, Rhonda Catron-Wood and Kristin Bell.
