Left to right are Gregory Emilio, Kiersten Paxton, Cheyenne Hewitt, Isabella Gall and Dr. Josh Martin.
GREENEVILLE– ThreeTusculum Universitystudents earned first place honors recently in a writing competition that showcased their talent in multiple genres and demonstrated they are on the path to becoming career-ready professionals.Tusculum’sEnglishprogram hosted the annual Curtis ’28 and Billie Owens Literary Prize ceremony Thursday, April 10.Held every spring, the event allows Tusculum students of any major to demonstrate their writing skills. English professors encouraged students to submit pieces in the drama, fiction, nonfiction and poetry categories.
Poet Gregory Emilio, executive director of the Georgia Writers Association and a lecturer at Kennesaw State University, served as this year’s prize judge. He began the ceremony by reading from his poetry collection “Kitchen Apocrypha.” The collection features poems themed around food with curated biblical and mythological connections.
Then he and Dr. Josh Martin, assistant professor of English at Tusculum, turned to recognizing the students who won awards in the competition.
“All the submissions were of such high quality,” Emilio said. “Judging this competition was such a delight.”
The first prize winner, Kiersten Paxton, a senior pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English, with a creative writing concentration, was awarded the nonfiction award for her piece titled “Appalachian Fairy.”
“’Appalachian Fairy’ is an incredibly complex and deeply moving lyric essay,” Emilio said. “Vivid descriptions of Appalachian winterscapes are threaded through with curious notes and bits of folklore. Paxton casts a spell with this essay.”
The next prize winner was Isabella Gall, a sophomore seeking apsychologydegree, who won for her poem “Well, if the son of God would kiss me.”
“With just five spare lines, this is a poem of Dickensesque comprehension and unsettling biblical reference in which Gall evokes Jesus to describe intense spiritual longing,” Emilio said.
He also had high praise for Gall’s other winning piece, a drama “Sleeping Upstairs.”
“’Sleeping Upstairs’ is a clever, delightful satire on vampire folklore,” Emilio said. “Gall pits a boy against a college-aged thief who has chosen the wrong house to burgle. What I love about this uncanny piece of drama is that it deliberately plays with the audience’s expectations, moving from what appears to be childish make-believe to something more sinister.”
The final winner was Cheyenne Hewitt, a junior majoring incommunication, with a theater concentration, who took home the fiction prize for her piece “Bad Religion.”
“It ingeniously uses a split first-person point of view to explore a chance encounter between a rideshare driver and a lovesick passenger on his way to meet his ex-girlfriend,” Emilio said. “The back-and-forth dialogue and shifting POV inches both characters towards a minor, but meaningful, revelation.”
Emilio also praised three honorable mention honorees. Student J.P. Noll was the runner-up in the nonfiction and fiction categories. Scott Newland was the runner-up for poetry. Paxton was the honorable mention for drama.
The performance by Paxton in this year’s competition continues a string of recognition she has earned. She won three first place awards in the Owens competition in 2024, and she finished third in the Tennessee Collegiate Poetry Contest in the fall.
The Curtis ’28 and Billie Owens Literary Prize was named for Tusculum faculty member Curtis Owens and his wife, Billie, who founded the award in 1995. Their goal was to honor and highlight the great creative achievements of Tusculum students.Each student who won a category received $250.
“The writing submitted by our students is a testament to the literary powerhouse that we have built at Tusculum,” Dr. Martin said. “Our students consistently produce outstanding writing, and those who pursue it as a career are distinguishing themselves as alumni. We are proud of this year’s honorees and all who are representing Tusculum exceptionally on the literary stage.”
Additional information about the English program is available athttps://site.tusculum.edu/english-2/. To learn more about the university, visitwww.tusculum.edu.
