Bulletin News
03/17/2011
Amie Whitlock, a senior majoring in geology and environmental science, has won top honor in SUNY Cortland’s annual writing contest.
Whitlock, of Cortland, N.Y., was recognized for her short story, “An Untitled Piece of Science Fiction,” written for the Writing Fiction course taught by Victoria Boynton, English Department. She submitted several entries to the competition and was one of four undergraduate students and two graduate students to receive $100 each for their winning entries in the 2010 College Writing Contest.
Whitlock will accept her award at the College’s Honors Convocation on Saturday, April 16. All winning entries will be published in a booklet dedicated to the college writing awards and posted online. The students will present their work on Scholars’ Day, an annual forum for faculty and student research, on Friday, April 15.
This year marks the 12th anniversary of the contest sponsored by the College Writing Committee, a group of 15 faculty members from a range of departments across campus. The committee received 85 submissions of creative and academic work for the competition. The work was judged on superior thinking, originality, insight and excellent command of language. All submissions written for courses during spring, summer and fall of 2010 were eligible.
Besides Whitlock, award recipients are:
• Collin Anderson, a graduate English major from Trumansburg, N.Y., for “Not Here,” a memoir written for the Seminar in the Composing Process course taught by Mary Lynch Kennedy, English Department.
• Brenna Filipello, a junior communication studies major from Selkirk, N.Y., for her memoir, “The Lifestyle of the Visually Impaired,” written for the Introduction to Professional Writing course taught by David Franke, English Department.
• Sarah Kane, a senior English major from Ithaca, N.Y., for her essay, “Narcissistic Personality Disorder in Willa Cather’s ‘Paul’s Case,’” written for the American Women Writers course taught by Denise Knight, English Department.
• Lauren Menchini, a freshman pre-major from Washingtonville, N.Y., for her essay, “Bullying,” written for the Writing Studies in the Community I course taught by John Suarez, Service-Learning.
• Taylor Morris, a junior professional writing major from TOWN, for development of “Cortland Professional Writing Website,” http://cortlandprofessionalwriting.tumblr.com/ created in the course Experiments in Creative Writing taught by Boynton.
• James Reardon, a graduate English major from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., for his memoir, “I Feel It in My Teeth, and Hers, and Hers Too,” written for the Seminar in the Composing Process course taught by Kennedy.
The 2011 contest will accept papers written for courses offered during spring, summer and fall 2011. Eligible papers will be judged in the following categories:
• Academic writing (papers based on sources or other data)
• Fiction (short stories)
• Poetry
• Scripts
• Creative nonfiction
• Multimodal compositions. Judges place emphasis on writing content. Pages should contain a minimum of 500 words of written text.
Beginning in 2011, students may also submit writing that did not originate in a SUNY Cortland course to a new category, “Personal Writing.”
For more information, contact Kennedy by e-mail or at (607) 753-2086.