League of Utah Writers 2016 Writing Contest Results

Best in Show (prose): Dustin Earl “Kami No Itte”

Best in Show (poetry): Isaac Timm “Beast-man”

1.      Short fiction:

1^st Amahl (Scott Tarbet)

2^nd Aren’t You the Kid? (Denis Feehan)

3^rd And Once She Could Fly (Chadd VanZanten)

Honorable Mentions:

            Dirty George (Jef Huntsman)

            The Right Note (Anne Stark)

            Just Wait for the Answer (Chadd VanZanten)

2.      Short genre fiction:

1^st The Boy Who Could Not Sleep (Denis Feehan)

2^nd The Half Door (Crystal Vail)

3^rd Daphne, the Girl in the Armor (Amanda Luzzader)

Honorable Mentions:

            The Screensaver’s Footprints (Jeffery Bateman)

Lovecraft’s Pillow (Scott Forman)

The Albatross (Jennifer Stevens)

3.      Flash:

1^st Initiation (Millie Tullis)

2^nd The Thaw (Karla Jay)

3^rd Ghost Herder (Emily Wheeler)

Honorable Mentions:

            Déjà Vu (Sherrie Lynn Clarke)

            Home (Sabrina Watts)

Road to Nowhere (Amanda Luzzader)

4.      Creative nonfiction:

1^st Kami No Itte (Dustin Earl)

2^nd Tete-a-Tete: The Secret Language of Hair (Felicia Rose)

3^rd Shooter (Jeffery Bateman)

Honorable Mentions:

            My Pick-Me-Up (Lora Stead)

The Libertine (Felicia Rose)

            Klatch (Timothy James)

5.      First chapter (Novel):

1^ST Pretender to the Crown (Melissa McShane)

2^nd A Shot at Justice (Karla Jay)

3^rd Camdon Cain (Christauna Asay)

Honorable Mentions:

            Memoirs of a Synth: Gold Record (Lyn Worthen)

            Clocking Out (Margot Hovley)

            The Passenger (Gregory Deluca)

6.      First chapter (YA):

1^st The Runes of Rahmanhatenweep (James Beers)

2^nd Snakes Are Terrible at Running Away (Abby Thorne)

3^rd Killing Nightmares (Leah Garriott)

Honorable Mentions:

            Snotty’s Revenge (Robin Glassey)

            The Fox on Fire (Rosalie Ledezma)

            The Sea Child (Carol Nicolas)

7.      Romance:

1^st Across the Lines (Emily Wheeler)

2^nd Beyond Dracula (Kendra Ellis)

3^rd Intersections (Lyn Worthen)

Honorable Mentions:

            Maple Mind Madness (Lori Parker)

            The Union (Dawnene Wilson)

            Rite of Passage (Linne Marsh)

8.      Media article:

1^st On Writing: Never, Never, Never Quit (unless you should) (Jeffery Bateman)

2^nd A Good Death (Marie Tollstrup)

3^rd Surviving SIDS (Sherrie Lynn Clarke)

Honorable Mentions:

            Observation of an Apprentice (Lyn Worthen)

            Rows of Flags—Too Close to Home (Jeffery Bateman)

            Harnessing Your Design Personality (Sue Leth)

9.      Children’s book:

1^st Blending (Christy Monson)

2^nd Sawyer Grace Ropes a Calf (Jeffery Bateman)

3^rd The Best Cheesy Sandwich Ever (Wayne Gledhill)

Honorable Mentions:

            Willowbee’s Workshop (Jeffrey Huenke)

            Bedtime Battle (Christy Monson)

            Everyone Up Front (Megan Jones)

10.   Encore prose:

1^st The Thriller Book Killer (Shirley Spain)

2^nd Living Pictures (Sherrie Lynn Clarke)

3^rd Wordless (Emily Wheeler)

Honorable Mentions:

            The Scarlet Letter 2.0 (Julie Walton)  

Razor Wire (Lorraine Jeffery)

A Little Magic (Carol Nicolas)

11.   Narrative poetry:

1^st Beast-man (Isaac Timm)

2^nd Mirror Worlds (Stephen Proskauer)

3^rd They Dance to “Fly Me to the Moon” (Millie Tullis)

Honorable Mentions:

            Little Birds in Love (Shirley Manning)

            Beyond Icarus (Shirley Manning)

            Optimist Prime (Isaac Timm)

12.   Light verse:

1^st Engaged or Not (Grace Jessen)

2^nd Only in the Ditches (Lorraine Jeffery)

3^rd Homonymium (Jef Huntsman)

Honorable Mentions:

            Unlocked (John Olsen)

            Computer Drain (Robyn Buttars)

            An Echo (Trish Hopkinson)

13.   Humor:

1^st For Thumb’s Sake (Marie Tollstrup)

2^nd Bray (Joshua Sorensen)

3^rd Click (Lori McDonald)

Honorable Mentions:

            Sweetie (Millie Tullis)

Ode to Sills (Marie Tollstrup)

            Growling Toilet (Jef Huntsman)

14.   Word play poetry:

1^st The Octopus (Denis Feehan)

2^nd The Naked Me (Amanda Luzzader)

3^rd Grand Canyon Canopy (Marie Tollstrup)

Honorable Mentions:

            Facing Despair (Jeremy Gohier)

            Mollusk II (Trish Hopkinson)

            Embraceable Me (Marilyn Richardson)

15.   Encore poetry:

1^st Unsuspecting (Robyn Buttars)

2^nd Hard Saddle on a Cold Day (Jeffery Bateman)

3^rd Message from a Crow (Shirley Manning)

Honorable Mentions:

Embers (Marie Tollstrup)

White Peaches (Irene Hastings)

Raccoon Shuffle (Marie Tollstrup)

One Bit of Advice

This weekend I had the pleasure of attending a panel put on as part of the Calliope Writing Course.

This is a no-holds-barred bare-knuckle writing course, put on by best-selling author Angie Fenimore and her husband Michael Sheen, that will strip away everything that's holding you back as a writer.


I attended a panel that they put on. After almost an hour of instruction from the panel, Michael ended it with this:

If you were to give one piece of advice . . . to these young budding writers, what would it be?

TJ Da Roza (editorial director for Jolly Fish Press) - Just write.

Lisa Mangum (acquisitions editor at Shadow Mountain Press) - This is the advice that I alway share from my good friend Rick Walton . . . quit. But if you can't, do the work.

Christopher Loke (executive editor and publisher for Jolly Fish Press) - Always be willing and ready to accept that your writing sucks. Once you acknowledge that, then you can improve.

Candace Thomas (young adult fantasy author) - Don't keep rewriting the first three chapters over and over again. Please just finish the book, because if you don't know how it ends, you don't know how to fix the problems. Just keep going. I know you want to re-write, but just keep going until you know the ending.

Johnny Worthen (author extraordinaire and tie-dye enthusiast) - 1) Finish what you start. 2) You can fix anything but a blank page. 3) Write your first draft as fast as you humanly can.

Bridget Cook-Burch (NY Times Bestselling author and Transformational Speaker) - Yes, you may suck as a writer, but you were meant to shine.

Heather Rubert (acquisitions editor at Future House Publishing) - I'm going to encourage you all to commit blasphemy, write in books . . . if you like something mark it. Pick it apart and see how it works.

This list is what we call a teaser. In the coming weeks, I'll add my own thoughts to each of these. Stay tuned!