poetry

Traveler Literary Selections for 2019-2020

gccazcrw1 Comment

After two months of reading and deliberation, we are ready to announce the selections for Issue #53 of the Traveler, GCC’s Arts & Literary Magazine. Thank you to our student and community readers, and to our faculty judges. Thank you to everyone who submitted their creative work and who made these selections so difficult.With over 100 submissions, the process was highly competitive. We hope that those who were not selected this time around will submit again when he Traveler reopens for submissions in Fall.

The authors and stories listed below will be published in the new issue, due out in April 2020. We will also have a celebratory reading on March 18th, open to the public, where the authors can read their winning work.

Fiction

  • 1st Place: “Symbology” by Malka Daskal
  • 2nd Place: “Alone” by Shannon Fernando
  • 3rd Place: “Antimatter” by Malka Daskal
  • Honorable Mention: “Heart of Ice” by Dawn Gibbs

Creative Nonfiction

  • 1st Place: “Length of a Moment” by Taylor Boucher
  • 2nd Place: “The Third Generation” by Malka Daskal
  • 3rd Place: “A Tuesday Morning Apocalypse” by Taylor Boucher
  • Honorable Mention: “Worthless” by Dawn Gibbs

Poetry

  • 1st Place: “A Decade of Yesterdays” by Bette Griffen
  • 2nd Place: “Double-Edged” by Shannon Fernando
  • 3rd Place: “Stormy Love” by Angel Fletcher
  • Honorable Mention: “Timeless” by Cynthia Herda

One-Act Play/Drama

  • 1st Place: “Sugar Script” by Jacob Nguyen
Advertisement

New Contest: The Robert W. Miller Award for Love Poetry

gccazcrwLeave a comment

We are proud to offer yet another contest for writers at GCC–and one with a monetary reward! Because the calendar has turned to February, and because February is so frequently associated with love and romance, this new contest focuses on love poetry. Thanks to a generous donation by GCC’s English Department Chair, David Miller, we are able to offer two students $100 for their original, creative work. The contest ends on March 1st. Full details and the submission form can be found here: The Robert W. Miller Award for Love Poetry.

GCC’s Annual Poetry & Prose Slam

gccazcrwLeave a comment

cantaloupe-42903_1280

Like a helicopter parent or a cantaloupe defiant of gravity, GCC’s Annual Poetry & Prose Slam draws closer–looms, one might say. Do you hear it? See it? Smell it? There is no ignoring the Slam. No pretending it isn’t there, nestled in your kitchen cabinets, between the cushions of your ride-share, in your Twitter mentions questioning the earnestness of your contributions. There will be no ducking, no hiding, no avoidant behavior of any kind.

And why would you want to avoid the Slam, especially when all it wants to do is award you with fame and money and expired chicken dinner coupons? Therefore, you are going to attend the Annual Poetry & Prose Slam. You are going to share a few of your original, creative pieces with a supportive audience and eager panel of judges. Open to the public, and with some free refreshments provided, there is no reason not to attend!

  • What: GCC’s Annual Poetry & Prose Slam
  • When: Wednesday, November 20th from 7:00PM to 8:30PM
  • Where: GCC Main Campus, SU-104

Basic Rules of the Slam:

  • Arrive a few minutes before 7PM so you can sign up to compete.
  • Each round, read one original piece, keeping under the three-minute time limit. Performances that exceed this limit will have their scores penalized.
  • Expect at least two rounds, with the potential for more if time permits. Meaning, you can enter more than one piece in the competition, but always perform your best pieces first.
  • Once all competitors have read/performed their work, the judges will tabulate scores. The top three performers will earn $100, $50, and $25 prizes respectively.
  • Have fun!

Artists of Promise – District Writing Competition

gccazcrw1 Comment

Each year, the Maricopa Community Colleges hold district-wide arts competitions and celebrations. A writing contest is part of these celebrations, and as writers, you are contractually obligated to submit your creative work to this contest. It’s right there in the fine print, if you look close enough, beneath the bits about imprisonment for tearing mattress labels and how breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Winning this competition not only results in publication in the district’s annual Passages magazine, but also a monetary award. Writers who place first, second, and third receive $300, $200, and $100 dollars respectively. First Place winners will be entered in the  National Student Literary Competition sponsored by the League for Innovation.

Much like GCC’s Traveler competition, the district accepts work from four genres (listed below). To review the guidelines in depth, and to submit your work, follow this link: https://events.maricopa.edu/event/artists-promise-creative-writing.

The deadline is November 18th, 2019! (Updated)

  • Essay: 2,000 words
  • Fiction: 3,000 words
  • One-Act Play/Script: 3,000 words including stage direction and/or production notes
  • Poetry: 67 lines

Reminder! Saturday Workshop: Poem in Your Pocket

gccazcrwLeave a comment

April is national poetry month, and this Saturday morning workshop will celebrate poetry! Poem in Your Pocket Day is part of the National Poetry month celebration, and we are going to celebrate this day at GCC. Come to this workshop with a poem in your pocket–or in your purse, your backpack, your hand. However you bring it doesn’t really matter, but choose a poem that can fit on one page. It can be a poem that you or someone else has written. Our task will be to analyze the short poem–the pocket-length poem–to see how it works. What techniques do poets use to impact the reader in a short space? We will explore the answers to this question and try a few techniques of our own.

All of our Saturday Workshops are free and open to the public.

  • What: Poem in Your Pocket Day, facilitated by Kimberly Williams
  • When: Saturday, April 6th from 10AM to 12PM
  • Where: GCC Main Campus, LA-141
  • Why: Because it’s our final workshop for Spring!

 

Reminder: Be Funny, Make Money (March 6th)

gccazcrwLeave a comment

We are just a few days away from our Humorous Poetry Contest and our celebratory reading for the 2018-2019 Traveler winners. A few of our literary winners from this year’s Traveler will lead off the night, sharing their winning work. Afterwards, participants in the Humorous Poetry Contest will read/perform their funniest, most creative poetry, making us laugh and smile and snort.

Come to compete, come to listen, come to support this great opportunity for the GCC writing community!

  • What: Humorous Poetry Contest (The Randy Smith Award for Humorous Poetry)
  • When: Wednesday, March 6th from 7 to 9PM
  • Where: GCC Main Campus, in SU-104 (A, B, C)
  • Why: First place wins $100

This event is free and open to the public, but contest participants must be GCC students. We do not restrict the subjects of creative works.