Winners of the Lena Todd Awards In Creative Writing

Every fall term, instructors of UNM’s undergraduate creative writing workshops nominate stories, poems, and creative nonfiction essays written by their students for the Lena Todd Awards. This year the authors of the first place entries will receive $100, the second place entries $50, and all winners will be given the opportunity to read from their work at an upcoming Works-in-Progress reading at Winnings Coffee House (111 Harvard Dr. SE).

Fiction:
First Place: Quentin Chirdon, “The Flyover” (Instructor: Jack Trujillo)
About “The Flyover,” Judge Brenna Gomez had this to say: “The entry self-consciously explores a writer’s struggle with herself and her work as she watches another bitter writer she knows—and hasn’t spoken to in years—implode. The prose is sure and strong, the dialogue funny, painful, and very believable.”
Second Place: Lyndsey Broyles, “American Perspective Weekly Special Feature” (Instructor: Jill Dehnert)
“A newspaper pays tribute to their obituary writer by showcasing his best obituaries—one of an old friend, one of his wife, one of a woman he loved and killed in an accident, and finally himself. Reading this story was a bit like fitting the pieces of a puzzle together—at the end the reader fits together the smaller character sketches to create one larger sketch of the main character. The experimental nature and ambition of the piece is intriguing and successful,” writes Gomez.

Poetry:
First Place: Erin Pooley-Cooper, “Genesister” (Instructor: Diane Thiel)
Judge Reid Maruyama admired the line breaks and concrete, synesthetic imagery. “The poet,” he writes, “makes an utterly captivating statement about gender roles with regards to the Biblical tradition.”
Second Place: Tiffini Mungia, “Of the Sun and Moon: a haiku series” (Instructor Diane Thiel)
“The imagery, rhythm, and form were perfectly suited to the content,” writes Maruyama.

Creative Nonfiction:
First Place: Molly Cudia, “The Bat” (Instructor: Ben Dolan)
“The best memoirs are often disguised by voice,” writes Judge Annie Olson. “The narrator in “The Bat” is tender, honest, and wise beyond her years. She is impressively strong and vulnerable at the same time. The essay relies on the narrator’s keen eye for detail. A meticulous description of the house she grew up in serves as the foundation for an essay about how one’s sense of home, family and belonging is irreparably altered by divorce. The narrator in “The Bat could easily judge her family and upbringing, but refuses to do so, and this is a big factor in why she is so endearing to readers.”
Second Place: Catherine A. Hubka, “Ghost Towns” (Instructor: Marisa Clark)
“Addressing grief and loss in writing is thematically challenging. The narrator in “Ghost Towns” is poignantly honest and forthcoming with readers about the death of her son. The essay is narrated with humor, poise and candor. There’s momentum to this story. From page one, readers are compelled to journey with the narrator, learn from her mistakes and insights, hurt for her loss, and relate to her humanity.”

Many thanks to this year’s judges! Congratulations to the writers and their mentors!