Applause, the literary magazine at the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith, placed
first in the Southern Literary Festival’s journal competition, an event where a UAFS
student took a second place award.
Tim VanDyke of Alma, who wrote the poem “Riff on Brathwaite’s ‘Bread,’” will receive his award check and certificate and will read his poem at the Southern Literary Festival slated for March 27-29 in Oxford, Miss. Rhiannon Corley of Fort Smith, editor of Applause magazine, will attend the festival to receive the magazine’s first-place award.
Applause is also the name of a creative arts organization at UAFS which sponsors a creative writing contest each fall. Finalists in that competition are selected by the Applause magazine staff through an anonymous evaluation of submitted works. The work by finalists was then submitted by faculty sponsor Dr. Carol Westcamp of Muldrow for review by a group of faculty judges. Top winners of the contest were sent to the regional festival competition, where VanDyke won his second place award and the magazine received a first place ranking.
In addition to VanDyke, all winners of the UAFS contest will be published in the 2014 magazine. First place winners in each category also receive a $50 check.
The winners in the UAFS magazine on-campus competition included:
Formal Essay: First place -- Lindsay Miranda of Cedarville, “Alexander Pope, a Political Poet.” Second place -- Staci Miller of Van Buren, “Jay Gatsby and the Nostalgia That Kills.”
Short Story: First place -- Jessica B. Weisenfels of Alma, “The Prize Fighter.” Second place -- Jessica B. Weisenfels of Alma, “The Usage of the Outside Couch.”
Poetry: First place -- Staci Miller of Van Buren, “Lizzie Dear.” Second place -- Tim VanDyke of Alma, “Riff on Brathwaite’s ‘Bread.’”
The Southern Literary Festival is an organization of southern colleges and schools founded in 1937 to promote southern literature. Each year a different school hosts the Festival, which includes an undergraduate writing conference that entails writing workshops in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and playwriting; a writing competition in those areas as well as in formal essay and literary-arts magazine; and a venue in which the participating students, faculty, and general public attend readings by well-known writers.