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You are here: Home / Archives for Stevan Allred

2014 Writing Contest Winners Announced

November 3, 2014 By Jan

C. Lill Ahrens, contest coordinator for the 2014 Oregon Writers Colony writing contests, has announced contest winners.

Nonfiction

1st place

Ryan Chin, Portland, Oregon, “The Hope He Had”

Nonfiction final judge Jen Weaver-Neist says about the story:

“From the very first page, “The Hope He Had” offers an inviting cargo of goods: mystery, rich rivers of description, and the author’s natural curiosity that eventually journeys into the American experience. The first-person observations are welcome threads from the fabric of the author’s everyday life, with his two young sons and Big Head the family dog playing complementary roles in his discoveries. Readers share in his reflections too, sifting through perspective and detail to arrive comfortably at the same conclusion: that this is a story about the genealogy of hope, our common ancestry — the tree that never dies.

2nd place

Rachael Pruitt, Eugene, Oregon, “Being Seen – 1972”

3rd place

Michael Coolen, Corvallis, Oregon, “What Is That Thing”

First Honorable Mention

Karen Keitz, Tillamook, Oregon, “Yellow”

Other Honorable Mentions (alphabetical by author)

Stacy Carleton, Portland, Oregon, “Making Room in an Occupied Heart”

Valerie Lake, Corvallis, Oregon, “Night of Lions”

Gail McNally, Beaverton, Oregon, “Fred’s Fall”

“Entries of Note” (alphabetical by author)

Art Edwards, Portland, Oregon, “The Bastard Who Cut My Hair”

Robert Freedman, Portland, Oregon, “Busted”

Donelle Knudsen, Richland, Washington, “Desert Rose or a Blooming Miracle”

Fiction

1st place

Ann Littlewood, Portland, Oregon, “The Owl on the Road to Medford” (Read an excerpt)

Fiction final judge Stevan Allred says about the story:

The winning story gives us a young couple with two problems to solve. One is immediate—what to do about a live bird they’ve come across on the road–and one is existential—will their luck change if they move to Medford? It gives us a sardonic narrator who runs a wildlife rehab center, someone who’s seen it all, and doesn’t think much of the human race. It gives us the sophisticated structure of a peripheral narrator—the story is told by the sardonic narrator, but it’s about the couple. The author’s prose is crisp and confident. The characters are well-drawn and convincing, the setting a little exotic, and the story itself has something to say about the power of a little routine kindness to change the course of events. There’s no real miracle at its core, only the daily miracle of rising above our own cynicism to find a moment of redemption in our daily lives. But that is the human condition, and this story, “The Owl on the Road to Medford,” evokes this truth without any undue sentimentality, and for all of these qualities, I say ‘Huzzah’ to this author. Well done!

2nd place

Donna Farley, Surrey, British Columbia, “The Witnesses”

3rd place

Harry Demarest, Corvallis, Oregon, “One Big Coffin”

First Honorable Mention

Lois Rosen, Salem, Oregon, “The Jewish Colleen”

Other Honorable Mentions (alphabetical by author)

Patricia Barnhart, Lakeview, Oregon, “Spin Cycle”

Patsy Lally, Lake Oswego, Oregon, “The Day I Met My Mother”

Chet Skibinski, Lake Oswego, Oregon, “An Old Man With a Beard”

“Entries of Note” (alphabetical by author)

Gail Bartley, Bend, Oregon, “Mourning Becomes Her”

Harry Demarest, Corvallis, Oregon, “House in the Woods”

Jean Peterson, Nehalem, Oregon, “Dousing Dolly”

Beth Navarro, Corvallis, Oregon, “Road Trip”

Norma Seely, Manzanita, Oregon, “The Appraiser”

Filed Under: OWC News Tagged With: Ann Littlewood, Beth Navarro, C. Lill Ahrens, Chet Skibinski, Contests, Donelle Knudsen, Donna Farley, Gail Bartley, Gail McNally, Harry Demarest, Jean Peterson, Jen Weaver-Neist, Karen Keitz, Lois Rosen, Michael Coolen, Norma Seely, Patricia Barnhart, Patsy Lally, Rachael Pruitt, Robert Freedman, Ryan Chin, Stacy Carleton, Stevan Allred, Valerie Lake

2014 OWC Writing Contest final judges named

March 28, 2014 By Jan Leave a Comment

Final judges have been chosen for the 2014 OWC Writing Contest.

Short Fiction

Stevan AllredStevan Allred will judge the short fiction contest.

Stevan Allred is the author of A Simplified Map of the Real World, his debut collection of short stories recently published by Forest Avenue Press.

He began working on the collection in 2004.  “I knew early on that the stories would be linked, that I would set them all in the same small town, Renata, and that this would be my chance to build something like Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County.”  

The central theme is love – romantic, familial, gay, straight – and how love fails us, and yet we keep coming back for more.  

Point-of-view characters from one story wander into others, and we see them through their own eyes as well as through the eyes of their neighbors, ex-wives, and children. 

Ten of the 15 stories have been published by various literary journals and websites.  

Stevan’s work has appeared in:

  • Brave on the Page: Oregon Writers on Craft and the Creative Life
  • Clackamas Literary Review
  • Bewildering Stories
  • Real
  • Windfall
  • Second Writes
  • Soundings
  • Perceptions
  • The Text
  • Inkwell
  • Mississippi Review
  • Ilya’s Honey
  • The Iconoclast
  • Rosebud
  • I Wanna Be Sedated: Thirty Writers on Parenting Teenagers
  • Pindledyboz
  • Beloit Fiction Journal
  • The Organ,
  • The Cereal Box Review
  • whatevermom
  • The Gobshite Quarterly
  • The Paumanok Review
  • Berkeley Fiction Review
  • Contemporary Haibun Online
  • Lite: Baltimore’s Literary Newspaper
  • The Portland Mercury
  • Syzygy
  • Writers Northwest
  • Northwest Writers Handbook 1995
  • Stepfamily Advocate
  • Fireweed
  • Portland Review

Narrative Nonfiction

Jen Weaver-NeistJen Weaver-Neist, Oregon editor and publisher, will judge the narrative nonfiction category.

She has been in the publishing business 15 years, wearing multiple hats in the editorial/production process.

Her work has included working for Portland businesses such as Collectors Press, Beyond Words Publishing and Graphic Arts Books, as well as other houses and authors nationally and internationally.

A graduate of St. Cloud State and the MA publishing program at Emerson College, she is proof that a paid profession can come of an English and American Studies degree!

She founded her own small publishing house, Dame Rocket Press, in 2007 and released five titles in as many years, featuring female authors with equal parts talent and sass.

In fact, the second title was her own 10-year project, Give My Love to Everybody, a collection of WWII letters from a great-uncle killed in action.

She also spreads the good word through her work as the coordinator of WiPP (Women in Portland Publishing), a position she’s held since 2006. Its monthly gatherings are a just a slice of all the talented and passionate people who live in the Portland area — something Jen celebrates and strives to emulate daily.

 

Find this year’s contest rules and prizes on the Contests page.

Filed Under: OWC News Tagged With: Contests, Jen Weaver-Neist, Stevan Allred

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