Tempe School District

First-Ever Tempe Community Writing Contest

Superstition Review

tempe writing contest

 

November may be National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), but for ASU students and Tempe residents who’d rather try their hand at shorter works, this is also the month to start preparing for a new spring writing challenge.

ASU’s College of Letters and Sciences and the writing programs in the Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are partnering with Tempe Public Library to host the first-ever Tempe Community Writing Contest.

The writing contest, which invites submissions in the genres of poetry, short fiction and nonfiction, is open to all Tempe residents, Tempe Library cardholders and all ASU students.

Entries will be accepted between Jan. 15, 2015 and Feb. 15, 2015 at this online submission link, and individuals may submit one piece in each genre if they wish. Entries will be read anonymously within three judging categories: high school student, college student (undergraduate or graduate) and community adult. One winner from each entry category will be chosen for each genre.

“The contest was the idea of several of the Tempe Public Library staff,” explains Jill Brenner, adult services librarian. “We’ve recently been offering more programming for writers as a natural extension of library services. The response has been fantastic, so we wanted to take it one step further.

“We immediately thought of ASU as a partner, since several of our writing workshops are being presented by ASU faculty members,” says Brenner.

She began collaborating in August with Jeanne Hanrahan, faculty associate and liaison for ASU Academic Success Programs, and Duane Roen, College of Letters and Sciences interim dean, to organize the contest and enlist judges from the university’s creative writing community.

“I thank the many faculty and staff who have enthusiastically stepped up to support the contest, and hope faculty across ASU will encourage their students to submit their writing,” observes Roen, who enjoys leading Tempe Public Library workshops to inspire family-history writing. “The process of writing, like any of the arts, can be an outlet for expression and a lifelong journey that enriches our individual lives and our communities.”

The Tempe Community Writing Contest winners will be announced in the spring and celebrated at a reception at Tempe Public Library. Winning entries will also be published on the library’s website. Additional information and contest details and a PDF of the contest announcement can be found at the Tempe Public Library events webpage.

For more information visit: https://asunews.asu.edu/20141110-tempe-writing-contest

Meet the Review Crew: Christine Truong

Superstition Review

Each week we feature one of our many talented interns here at Superstition Review.

Christine Truong is an Art Editor for Superstition Review. She studies English Literature and Art History at Arizona State University and upon graduation she plans to attend a graduate program to learn, research, and write about literature.

Christine was born in Vietnam, but has spent the majority of her life living in the inner-city of Los Angeles. She considers herself fascinated and jaded by city-life. However, after traveling to towns throughout Europe, Asia, and the U.S., she has come to conclude that Los Angeles, with its imperfections, is no ordinary place. Christine continues to draw inspiration from the pathos of city-life and like others of her generation, she thinks about what it means to be a young adult in modern life.

Unlike other students of her discipline, Christine did not always enjoy books. Her love for books began when a Middle School teacher recommended that she read The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan after learning of her Vietnamese heritage. Christine likes to say that her true love for literature began when she read Demian by Herman Hesse and Anthem by Ayn Rand in the tenth grade—both, in their own ways, stories of individual conquest.

Today, her love of literature has translated over to the world of literary theory and poetry. In both her spare time and academic life, Christine enjoys reading critical theory, where every piece seems to be more complicated and elaborate than the previous. She is interested in poetic forms, rhetoric, and post-colonial and deconstructionist theories. She enjoys the critical and prose works of T.S. Eliot and other Modernists, as well as the English Romantics and Russian writers. If she were forced to choose a work to read for the rest of her life, she would, without a question, choose T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock.” If she had to choose a work of art to view for the rest of her life, it would be Eugène Delacroix’s Paganini.

Christine’s interest in Superstition Review came at time when she realized she needed to spend more time connecting with others who also love art and literature. She also writes an opinion column on culture and politics for ASU’s State Press. In her spare time, she updates her literature blog, a hundred visions and revision and tries to find time to update her cooking blog, Culinary Curiosities.

Christine enjoys reading astrological charts. She is also an after-school instructor for the Tempe School District and teaches play programs for parents and their toddlers at Gymboree Play and Music.