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Recognitions

Judy Hunt

Welcome to Recognitions, a column dedicated to proclaim the writing successes of Writers' Village University members!

The variety of awards Christine Henderson took home from the June Arkansas Writers' Conference illustrates the range and scope of her writing interests. She won Third Honorable Mention, Patricia A. Laster Award, with her essay, "Choices." Her poem "Transitions" ranked Second Honorable Mention, Voices International Poetry. She picked up First Honorable Mention, A.W.C. Prose Award, with her short story, "The Way of It." Christine won Third Place for the Grand Conference Award with a humorous short story entitled, "Mamie." The Grand Conference Award was the top contest at the conference. The story needed to include these elements: a 911 call, a character named Ansonius and the phrase, 'bumblebee on a cat's nose.' "It was really a blast writing this one!" she said.

Writing is more than a hobby for Christine. "I am serving my second year as President of a local writers' group, (White County Creative Writers in Arkansas), and have served as Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer of that organization. We host a conference every year over the Labor Day weekend, and I have chaired that activity several times," she reported.

Christine is a Poetry Contributing Editor for T-Zero, and when not contributing, she is on its submissions board. Christine joined Writers' Village in 2000; her coursework focuses on short story writing and plotting. She dabbles in all types of writing but enjoys Poetry and Short Fiction best of all.

Jim Hall was the featured poet at the meeting of The Snapdragon Poetry Society at Tumbleweed Books in Pueblo, Colorado, on June 20. He will also be the featured poet at one of the weekly meetings of a new poetry group at the Wireworks Coffee Shop in Pueblo in the near future. Jim enjoys attending these meetings. "It is nice to have an audience to feed on. It is satisfactory to find oneself recognized as a poet, especially by other poets," he remarked.

The June 2002 Dana Literary Society Online Journal (http://www.danaliterary.org) published one of Jim's stories, "Two Out, Three On," selected from his book of short fiction, "A Balcony in Brooklyn." Another selection, "Panic in Connecticut," will appear in the August issue, along with one of his poems entitled, "A Childhood Friend."

A WVU Lifetime Member, Jim facilitates the Poetry Workshop course. He writes fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

Charity Tahmaseb's essay, "Tolstoy's Happy Families," will appear in the summer issue of The First Line (http://www.thefirstline.com). Her essay is about the first line from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Charity said, "I've always been fascinated with the first line of Anna Karenina and what Tolstoy meant by it. As a Russian major, I've read the novel three times, once in Russian. I guess I wanted to put my degree to good use."

A Lifetime Member of Writers' Village, Charity facilitates the Writing the Mystery Novel course and is active in various groups.

Tammie Schaaf's poem, "If Kaitlyn Was A Butterfly," was published in the May 2002 issue of T-Zero. She joined WVU last year but has been writing for pleasure for more than 25 years. Tammie likes to write short stories for children and teens.

Hetty Austen's poem, "Block It Out," was published in the June 2002 issue of T-Zero. She joined Writers' Village last year with an ultimate goal to have a book published in print format.

Joan Myers' poem, "Hair--Unaware," was published in the June 2002 issue of T-Zero. A Lifetime WVU Member, Joan lives to write. She has been published in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and won an honorable mention in the Westmoreland International Short Story Contest.

These fine writers took action to submit to magazines, e-zines and contests, and we are now lauding their accomplishments. Kudos, writers! Congratulations! We're proud of you!

The first step to being published is to submit. And then submit again! If we don't submit, we won't be published. We can't let the fear of rejection prevent us from submitting. So get out there and submit, submit, submit!

We look forward to reading about your writing accomplishments next month in this column. If you or someone you know has received recognition for writing, please send the information to recognitions@wvu.org Let us know!