The Adirondack Center for Writing
"Creating A Sense Of Place Through Literature"

Writing Contest for Adult and Young Writers!

Winners of This Year's Writing Contest Announced!

The Adirondack Center for Writing and North Country Public Radio are pleased to announce the winners of this year's Writing Contest. The genres considered this time were humor and short story. As always, hundreds of both young and adult writers submitted to this popular contest. ACW and NCPR would like to thank the judges for their hard work and dedication. And, the winners are...

Humor 21+
First Place: Patrick O'Brien (West Chazy)
Runner-Up: Janice Cutbush (Ballston Spa)

Humor 12-20
First Place: Raven Hetzler (Potsdam)
No runners-up

Short Story 21+
First Place: Gabriela Bartlett (Saratoga Springs)
Runner-Up:Glenn Erick Miller (Lowville)
Runner-Up:Paul Schimmelpfennig (Waterville, VT)

Short Story 12-20
First Place: Mariah Wilson (Lisbon)
Runner-Up: Catherine Sheard (Canton)
Runner-Up: Matthew Snyder (Potsdam)

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone who participated. Click here to read the winning manuscripts.
We would like to thank our judges for their hard work and dedication:

Writing Contest Judges
We are very proud of our judges. ACW and NCPR take great pains to find qualified and passionate writers and educators who have the tough job of reading hundreds of submissions and deciding the winners and runners-up in each genre and age category. Our heartfelt thanks to each of them.

Judges for Short Story 21+

John Ernst worked in children's book publishing for ten years, starting as an Editorial Assistant at Doubleday & Company, Books for Young Readers and ending as the Editorial Director of the department. He has written two books for Young People, ESCAPE KING: The Story of Harry Houdini and JESSE JAMES, both published by Prentice-Hall. Ernst also edited four anthologies published by Doubleday. While working as a children's book editor he served on the Board of the Children's Book Council. He has a B.A. from Harvard College and spent a year reading English at University College, Oxford University.

Chris Robinson teaches Political Science and Philosophy at Clarkson University. He is also the co-host of NCPR’s “Readers and Writers on the Air.” Robinson has written extensively in the areas of environmental political thought, philosophy in the twentieth century, and contemporary literature. He has completed his first book, The View From Somewhere: Wittgenstein and Political Theory, and is at work on another about peace as a political concept.

Judges for Short Story 12-20

Star Livingstone is the author of the children’s book Harley (Sea Star Books, 2001). She has been teaching writing workshops for adults and school aged children in the Old Forge area for many years.

Martha Swan teaches Spanish and French in the Newcomb School District and is the founding director of the grassroots freedom education project, John Brown Lives! She resides in the Champlain Valley.

Judges for Humor Essays 21+

Tim Brookes was born in South London and attended Oxford. There he studied as little as possible for two years, then as much as possible, and came away with an MA and a funny degree in education that, like a crumpet, has no American equivalent.

Since 1980 he has taught writing at various elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities, and is currently the director of the writing program at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont.

Brookes has been published in the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, the Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic, Outside, and all kinds of other newspapers and magazines.

He has also published eight books: Catching My Breath (Times Books, 1994), Signs of Life (Times Books, 1997), A Hell of a Place to Lose a Cow (National Geographic Adventure Press, 2000), Behind the Mask: How the World Survived SARS (American Public Health Association Press, 2004), Guitar: An American Life (Grove Atlantic, 2005), The Driveway Diaries (Turtle Point Press, 2005), A Warning Shot (APHA Press, 2005), and The End of Polio? (APHA Press, 2006). A Hell of a Place to Lose a Cow was chosen as one of the best travel books of 2000 by the New York Times and Booklist; Guitar was chosen as one of the best books of 2005 by Library Journal.

In 1989 he wrote his first commentary/essay for NPR and has been doing them ever since, making him (he thinks) their fourth most senior essayist.

Mark Wilson occupies a small, uncoveted niche on the rock-strewn terrain of newspaper editorial art. While the hopelessly rust-locked power struggle that is New York State government offers a cartoonist little opportunity to influence meaningful civic reform, it does guarantee material for a full career of sardonic commentary.

Under the signature MARQUIL, Wilson's cartoons appear regularly across central and eastern New York State in The Adirondack Daily Enterprise, The Journal News (Ithaca), The Saratogian (Saratoga Springs), The Times Herald-Record (Middletown), The Record (Troy), The Observer-Dispatch (Utica) and The Press-Republican (Plattsburgh). His illustrations appear in Adirondack Life magazine and The Sunday Gazette of Schenectady.

Judges for Humor Essays 12-20

Ted Caldwellhas coordinated enrichment programs in five Adirondack schools over the past 20 years. He was on the board of the Writer's Voice of Silver Bay and has involved his students in many writing programs. He has a BA in economics from the College of Wooster and an MSEd in administration and supervision from SUNY Plattsburgh.

Dale Hobson is North Country Public Radio’s web manager and he hosts the monthly podcast, Giving Voice, featuring poetry in performance and conversations about the creative process.

Giving Voice airs as a segment on the NCPR regional arts program Open Studio on the last Thursday of each month at 7 pm. The podcast versions are extended edits from the broadcast feature.

We are proud to announce the winners of the 2005-2006 Writing Contest!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL!
Nature Writing
First Place: Trina Hikel, Hinesburg, VT
Nature

Runner-up: Clint McCoy, Canton, NY
Loon Gluttony

Memoir Writing
First Place: Patricia Baird Greene, Hermon, NY
The Day Before The Auction

Runner-up: Dana Fast, Lake Clear, NY
Escape from the Ghetto

Runner-up: Renate Wildermuth, North Creek, NY
The King of Crumbs

This contest is presented by the Adirondack Center for Writing and North Country Public Radio. Click here to read the winning manuscripts.

We would like to thank our judges for their hard work and dedication:

Nature Writing: 21+ years old

Bill McKibben, an internationally acclaimed environmental writer, has published many books including Hundred Dollar Holiday, Maybe One, The End of Nature, The Age of Missing Information and Hope, Human and Wild. His most recent book, Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape: Vermont's Champlain Valley and New York's Adirondacks, was published by Crown Books in April 2005.

Christopher Shaw, the former editor of Adirondack Life magazine, currently divides his time between Vermont and Saranac Lake. Shaw teaches writing at Middlebury College and serves on the admissions board of the prestigious Breadloaf Writers Conference. Recently his work has appeared in Outside, The New England Review, and the Columbia Review. His book, Sacred Monkey River: A Canoe Trip with the Gods, was named one of the notable books of 2000 by the Washington Post Book World.

Memoir: 21+ years old

Chris Robinson teaches Politics, Philosophy, and Public Law at Clarkson University in the School of Arts and Sciences. His research and publications focus on the language of political life and thought. Robinson is currently completing a book on Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of language and the way it encourages us to look at politics differently. He counts himself extremely fortunate to the co-host of North Country Public Radio's program, Readers and Writers on the Air.

Natalia Rachel Singer is the author of the memoir, Scraping by in the Big Eighties, and is co-editor with Neal Burdick of Living North Country: Essays on Life and Landscapes in Northern New York. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including Ms., Harper's, The North American Review, and The American Scholar. She is an associate professor of English at St. Lawrence University.

Writing Contest Sponsors
We are very excited to be able to offer this writing contest, and we thank our area colleges and universities for their sponsorship:

Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY

Jefferson Community College, Watertown, NY

North Country Community College, Saranac Lake, NY

Paul Smith's College, The College of the Adirondacks, Paul Smiths, NY

Plattsburgh State University, Plattsburgh, NY

SUNY Canton College of Technology, Canton, NY

State University of New York College at Potsdam, Potsdam, NY

St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY

Questions?
Contact: the Adirondack Center for Writing or:
Ellen Rocco or Dale Hobson at North Country Public Radio
Phone: 1-877-388-NCPR (6277)
Email: radio@ncpr.org
North Country Public Radio.


Adirondack Center for Writing
Paul Smith's College, PO Box 265
Paul Smiths, New York 12970
Phone: 518-327-6278
Fax: 518-327-6161
Email: acw@paulsmiths.edu