With great pride, the English Department would like to announce the winners of the Engage Writing Contest. We were struck by the way each writer's voice comes through in their writings in unique and powerful ways. With gravitas, power, and insight, these writers explore matters personal as well as universal.
Below, you will find excerpts from their submissions. Congratulations, winners! Thank you for your dedication to the craft.
2021 / 2022
1st Place: Kendra Bearss
“Father”
“I pull up to the red light, waiting in the left turn lane. He’s there, with his sign, a cracked smile on his lips. I make it a point to meet his eyes, even though it feels uncomfortable. My hands are shaking, my heart races a bit. I’m not sure if I’m feeling social anxiety or fear. Maybe a mix.”
2020/2021
1st Place: Shane Curtis-Madden
“Keep Dreaming, America”
“On day one of our nation’s history, the founding fathers made a promise they themselves couldn’t keep. 345 years later, the Declaration of Independence is still held dear, but it remains an unfulfilled promise, a “bad check.” Dr. King called it. People will argue that I have some false sense of entitlement, but if you aren’t entitled to the things you were promised, ideals commonly held as natural law, then what ARE you entitled to? The promise of life includes the right to reasonably maintain and prolong it.”
2nd Place: Ebony Henderson
“Movements of Black Culture: The Black Renaissance and Its Legacy”
“Born in the 80’s, I would hear artists and actors speak of the greats from the Harlem Renaissance, one of the many names for The Black Renaissance. As a New Yorker, I was a car ride away from the same streets that were vibrant and filled with the ghosts of the past. You’re always asked what era you would reside in, and it’s just never a fun game for an oppressed citizen. However, I often like to discuss the “old days” with older generations which filled me with so many thoughts….”
3rd Place: Derek Evans
“Peace Out”
Honorable Mention: Richard Quillan
"Out of the Matrix”
2017/2018
1st Place: Zachary Schondelmayer
"Snapshots of Warmer Places"
"You need to understand that when I write on these subjects or speak on these times, I must essentially revisit the place or experience, and that has a strange biological effect on me. I can feel the darkness and disconnection from all the world, and it’s a deeply hopeless place I worked hard to block out. But for the sake of this piece, and for my own peace, I will walk back into the valley…
I don’t recall our task on this mission, but it took us down some of the worst roads, if you can even call them that. They were trails, and the potholes weren’t scarce. I was oriented in my gunners hatch at the 9:00 with mostly just desert land and occasional palm trees and grape fields when first I saw, then heard, the mortar land. I jumped on the radio 'ONE O’CLOCK ONE HUNDRED METERS MORTAR FIRE!'"
2nd Place: Raina Malley
"Following the Child"
"Americans do not seem to recognize that activity and freedom can actually result in achieving important goals, when students are guided and directed in a conducive environment. Perhaps it is the American tradition of a competitive economy, industrialization, or survival-of-the-fittest, that creates this automatic reliance on checklists and factory-style educational development. Regardless, it has been proven that the opposite approach can work. Americans need to become more open-minded and willing to consider the methods of education that are actually yielding the best results, even if at first they do not sound plausible."
3rd Place: Steven Duchnowski
"A Fisherman on Deck Immersed in Sea and Lightening Bugs"
"I realized then she wasn’t coming for me, in an empty schoolyard after hours, waiting. My eyes wandered some and observe the way Teacher holds her cigarette, gentle but firm, with a desperate inhale and trembling exhale; how the end burns like a brilliant sun and leaves feeble ash behind. Soon after a habitual flick of the finger she sucked down another drag, eyes deep and dull, red and raw. What is it that ails this woman? I wondered.
'Did your mother say she was doing anything today?' She asked in that bleak lifeless voice, flicked the remainder of the cigarette into the dry autumn leaves, as I too remained entranced by that orange light, how it moved and left a stretch of black behind, like headlights cutting through the darkness."
2016/2017
1st Place: Lambert Shekanena
"A Bucket of Fried Chicken"
"One Tuesday after chapel service had concluded, a young brown haired girl dashed up to the pulpit as we were exiting, snatched the mic out of the dean’s hand and called us all to attention. She reached under the pulpit and pulled out a small, mustard yellow, woven basket filled to the brim with a mini watermelon, packets of grape Kool Aide, and a bucket of fried chicken. My eyes widened in terror as she proceeded to ask a young Black man to the banquet with her basket of microaggressions and they nearly burst out of their sockets when the brother said yes."
2nd Place: MaryAnne Flier
"With Liberty and Justice for Some"
"We must seek to change this narrative in our country. We must open our eyes to the systems that have been, and still are, in place to hold down or oppress people of color. To begin, as Ms. Uwan stated, we must work tirelessly to know the reality that faces people of color, to really listen to their stories, to live in community with them. In doing this, we are unable to subconsciously keep them relegated as “others” in our minds any longer, and are truly able to squelch any implicit biases we hold. This is truly a crucial first step to racial justice. A sometimes-painful, but absolutely necessary, first step."
3rd Place: James King
Untitled
"So there was conception. I don't remember it. And then I was born, like all of you, crippled and stupid, with a vast cavern of mind to fill with memories, conclusions, judgments: a warehouse where we build the store of implements with which we nightly torture ourselves in our dreams."