Posted: 30 Apr 2020 11:03 PM PDT

Bishop's collection is about the lingering trauma of the Victorian Black Saturday fires in February 2009, when 173 people lost their lives. Her family home at Christmas Hills was destroyed and her father only just managed to escape.

Bishop chose to write short stories largely because she wanted multiple perspectives: ''There are so many stories and some interweave and some don't. I sometimes think short fiction gets an essence of feeling that perhaps longer-form fiction doesn't always get.''

When she started writing she didn't expect the stories would end up in a collection. ''They were just things that moved me, nuggets of things, of truth about the whole disaster that were emblematic of the bigger story.'' Bishop said she is now working on a novel.

This is the second time that Rowe has been a Herald Best Young Australian Novelist. She was chosen in 2017 for her novel, A Loving, Faithful Animal, which was originally intended as a story in Here Until August.

Rowe said she had worked on the stories for seven years. ''I tend to be quite a frenetic thinker – if you saw my drafts, you'd be horrified – there would be lines that tail off, three versions of the same sentence with minor variations. I tend to collect things and am quite happy if the story is not working out - there's the hope that maybe it will in a couple of years and it goes on the shelf.

''I think there's so much you learn along the way – the research you do and the mindsets and thought processes that are particular to any story or any piece of writing. I think all of that's really valuable and gets overlooked as being part of the work of writing.''

Joey Bui, a second generation Vietnamese Australian, is studying at Harvard Law School, having previously spent four years at New York University Abu Dhabi. Many of her stories are set in Vietnam and one she dedicates one to Nam Le.

''The Boat is the most influential, formative book for me. I was 15, and for the first time I saw that literature didn't have to be about white families — that it could be about families like mine, that it was a lot broader than what I had seen so far, that it could feel extremely real and intimate, rather than a flight of fantasy.

''It also showed me a Vietnamese Australian who excelled and succeeded in writing. Growing up in a poor, immigrant family, it was difficult to believe that I could be an author.''

Joey Bui, who is studying at Harvard Law School, set many of her short stories in Lucky Ticket in Vietnam. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui

Bui had always wanted to write: ''I wrote my first 'book' in Grade 4, about Linny and Linna, two twins and their dragon sidekick fighting underground wars. I won a prize for a poem about fairies sometime later in primary school, another prize for a story about Beethoven in high school. I was a fairly lonely, introspective, only child buried in stories all day — which is nothing new to hear about writers.'' Along with her legal studies, Bui too is writing a novel.

Most Viewed in Culture

MACOA holds creative writing contest - Daily Journal Online

Posted: 01 May 2020 11:30 AM PDT

Many famous authors were first recognized for their talents by winning a writing contest. Ray Bradbury, Jack London and Edgar Allen Poe caught the attention of publishers after their first stories took first place in contests.

"Where the Red Fern Grows" author Wilson Rawls first had his story – originally titled "Hounds of Youth" – published as a three-part serial story in the Saturday Evening Post in 1961 before it was published as a novel.

Well now is your chance to become a published author.

Mineral Area Council on the Arts has announced a creative writing contest, which has been in the works for several months. The council is planning to make the contest an annual event.

"MACOA wants to support the literary arts in our area just as it does other fields of the arts," said Scottye Adkins, executive director. "We hope the writers out there will spend some quarantine time and summer free time writing."

She said the arts council has had "great support" from the Mineral Area College English Department and local published authors in planning this event and establishing the guidelines.

"We expect to receive many high-quality entries," said Adkins.

The theme for MACOA's contest is "The Journey." All entries must relate to this theme.

The contest is open to two groups of residents in MACOA's service region, which covers Iron, Madison, Perry, St. Francois, Ste. Genevieve and Washington counties in Missouri. The first group is for high school students in 10th through 12th grades during the 2020-21 academic year. The second group is for adults.

Three categories are available: poetry, short story and essay.

One winner will be chosen in each category for each group for a total of six winners.

Contest guidelines and the entry form can be found online at www.MineralAreaArts.org.

Winners will be announced Oct. 14.

A creative writing workshop with guest speaker and author Karen Sargent will take place Oct. 17 at 3 p.m. at ColJac Artisan Café in Farmington. The winners of the writing contest will receive their cash prizes and be given a public reading for their entries following the workshop.

Winning entries will be published on MACOA's website www.MineralAreaArts.org. In addition to these six winning entries, one overall winner will be chosen to also have their work published in the Daily Journal.

Entries will be accepted from Aug. 3 through Sept. 30 by email (as a PDF file) at MACOACreativeWriting@MineralArea.edu or by mail at MACOA, PO Box 1000, Park Hills, MO 63601.

Pam Clifton is a contributing writer for the Daily Journal

0 comments

Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly!

VIDEO: GMC Sportsmanship Awards virtual ceremony - My Central Jersey

Posted: 01 May 2020 05:22 AM PDT

The coronavirus pandemic canceled the 19th Annual Dan Hayston Memorial Greater Middlesex Conference Sportsmanship Awards luncheon, but did not prevent the league from honoring its recipients through a virtual ceremony.

In lieu of the annual luncheon, which was to be held at the Pines Manor in Edison, league officials and athletics directors worked in concert with local media members to construct a video awards presentation to pay tribute to 65 student-athlete honorees.

READ: GMC launches league-wide initiative to help feed Middlesex County families

The video, which can be found beneath this short story, features, among others, Speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly Craig J. Coughlin, who delivers a wonderful keynote address for the Sportsmanship Award recipients, and Senator Patrick J. Diegnan Jr., who concludes the virtual awards ceremony with inspirational closing remarks.

The production includes a virtual honor roll call with photographs of each of the award winners, who hail from the league's 34 high schools, and acknowledgment of the four conference members who won GMC Division Sportsmanship Awards.

The honorees will receive a hard copy of the Sportsmanship Awards program, as well as their official trophies at a later date once COVID-19 social distancing restrictions are relaxed.

Our thoughts and prayers remain with those COVID-19 has impacted and with all who are on the front lines battling the insidious coronavirus.

A special message for the honorees from MyCentralJersey.com sports writer Greg Tufaro, along with a complete list of this year's GMC Sportsmanship Award recipients can be found beneath the video.

The virtual celebration would not have come to fruition without the outstanding contributions of Joe DaRold, official videographer of the MyCentralJersey.com Middlesex-Union All-Star football game, and longtime WCTC sportscaster Mike Pavlichko.

Special thanks also to Frank Noppenberger, Chris Hayston and all of the conference's athletics directors.

Congratulations to all the honorees.

TUFARO'S SPECIAL MESSAGE FOR HONOREES

The adage with which you are all familiar – it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game – originated more than a century ago from the pen of legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice, whose famous poem, Alumnus Football, contains the following stanza:

For when the One Great Scorer comes

To mark against your name,

He writes not that you won or lost

But how you played the game

Grantland Rice's words are a metaphor for how we are judged in life – the One Great Scorer, of course, referring to God – but they also epitomize the very reason you are here today, for we are not acknowledging any team championships or individual titles, but celebrating something far greater that is rarely recognized.

I write hundreds of stories during the course of an academic year. Few of them, unfortunately, chronicle your acts of sportsmanship, because readers, quite frankly, are more concerned with your athletic prowess than your ladylike or gentlemanly conduct on the playing field.

COLUMN: Pandemic strikes out high school baseball, but not the game's lessons

Sometimes those acts are subtle, like a softball catcher picking a bat off the ground and handing it to an opposing hitter upon her return to the batter's box after sprinting down the first-base line on a foul ball. Or like a crestfallen wrestler who just suffered a career-ending loss in the region consolation final, hugging an opponent who simultaneously punched his own ticket to Atlantic City. Or like a basketball player extending a hand to pull an opponent off the court who just took a charge that was so hard it left an imprint of the baseline on his back.

You've all heard of the Cy Young award, The Stanley Cup, The Lombardi Trophy, The Heisman Trophy and The Ryder Cup.

But how many of you are familiar with The Bob Frederick award? The Art Rooney award? The Roberto Clemente award? The Kim Perrot award? The Lady Byng trophy?

All five of the aforementioned are presented, respectively, by the NCAA, the NFL, Major League Baseball, the WNBA and the NHL for sportsmanship.

Your lack of familiarity with those awards compared to the others reflects the amount of attention athletes receive for winning individual and team honors in comparison to how they played the game.

IN MEMORIAM: Devoted family man, beloved educator and inspirational coach Jim Brown succumbs to coronavirus

Even the great Grantland Rice spent more time documenting on-field heroics in the early 20th century than he did penning poetic verse about player conduct. So you see, while the world around us has changed dramatically over the last 100 years, the one constant in athletics is that acts of sportsmanship have forever been under-publicized.

Despite the added pressure of being held to a higher standard as a student-athlete, you have conducted yourself with grace. You have set an example for your teammates and your opponents. You are a credit to your athletic programs and your schools. You are a reflection of your parents, coaches, teachers and administrators who have molded you to respect the game, its rules and its players. You are role models for youngsters, and for that, I thank you. I wish you the best in your future endeavors and hope that your legacy resonates with the conference's underclassmen.

I leave you with these words, a twist on that renowned stanza from the great Grantland Rice:

For when the local sports writer came

To speak of your good name

He cared not on this day whether you won or lost

Just how you played the game

GMC SPORTSMANSHIP AWARD HONOREES

Calvary Christian: Alyssa Paulson, Alex Merckx. Carteret: Brenda Guzman, Michael Gurzynski. Colonia: Tiffany Rolon Lucas, Marc Nykolyn. Dunellen: Erin Barnett, John Ciannello. East Brunswick: Alyna Negron, Jonathan Benowitz. East Brunswick Tech: Kelly Jamison, Brendan Bukowski. Edison: Kacey Colletto, Malachi White. Edison Academy: Joseph Finnegan. Highland Park: Linda Wang, Owen Montero-Reyes. John F. Kennedy: Jennifer Jara, Lucas Teeple. J.P. Stevens: Shreya Patel, Brian McAdams. Metuchen: Arielle Benderly, Elijah Ervin. Middlesex: Juliana Kravantka, Jared Craig. Monroe: Samantha Carella, Robert Hunter. Mother Seton: Alyssa Janowski. New Brunswick: Zalma Herrera, Oscar Pacheco. North Brunswick: Zaniyah Boykins, Justin Fisher. Old Bridge: Lauren Farkas, Samuel Kamara. Perth Amboy: Jacqueline Zuniga, Raphael Hernandez. Perth Amboy Tech Brittany Trigueros Ordonez, Oscar Correa. Piscataway: Dana Ogilvie, Steven Hernandez. Piscataway Tech: Tamia Lane, Ariel Delgado. Saint Joseph: Eric Freda. Saint Thomas Aquinas: Eleni Alvarez, Sean O'Leary. Sayreville: Janeva Holland, Dylan Clerigo. South Amboy: Selina Maisonett, Bryan Pena. South Brunswick: Jillian Ryan, Akhil Edekar. South Plainfield: Jordan Lovett, Joseph Walker. South River: Khayla Smith, Steven Rodriguez. Spotswood: Jaclyn Gialanella, John Welsh. Timothy Christian: Sarah Collier, Liam Page. Wardlaw-Hartridge: Brianna Chambers, A.J. Massaro. Woodbridge: Brielle Skibar, Marcos Piastre. Woodbridge Academy: Sarah Paladino, Darshan Patel.

Search This Blog

Famous Short Story

Three short story writers named Herald's Best Young Australian Novelists - Sydney Morning Herald

Three short story writers named Herald's Best Young Australian Novelists - Sydney Morning Herald

Most Viewed in Culture

TUFARO'S SPECIAL MESSAGE FOR HONOREES

GMC SPORTSMANSHIP AWARD HONOREES

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

52 works of Canadian fiction coming out in spring 2024

George R. R. Martin Answers Times Staffers’ Burning Questions (Published 2018)

The 107 female authors everyone should have on their bookshelf