Writing Contest Winners

Announcing PCCC’s First Annual Writing Contest winners!

Writing is alive and well at PCCC. We had 78 total entries in the 4 categories. There were many outstanding entries, and students were enthusiastic about the contest.

Special thanks to the dedicated judges who generously donated their time (right at finals!) to choosing our winners:

Poetry
Mark Hillringhouse
Elizabeth Nesius

Ken Ronkowitz

Academic Essays
Martha Brozyna
Alexandra Della Fera
Randy Jenkins

Short Fiction
Kelly Bender
Mark Hillringhouse
Latoya Reid

Creative Nonfiction
Emily Eklund 

Mark Hillringhouse 

Maggie Holland

Thanks also to the very generous individuals who donated prizes:
Martha Brozyna
Greg Fallon
Sally A. Handley and Sally Handley Inc. 

Mark Hillringhouse
Anita Kumar
Elizabeth Nesius

Jim Thoubboron

And now, without further ado, the winners of the Writing Contest are….

Poetry
1st Place: Jennifer Torres, “Almost There”
2nd Place: Javier San Juan, “Ideal”
3rd Place: Leonel Quintanilla, “Fatherless infant with earsplitting cry”

Honorable Mention:
Patrick Fortunato, “Audio Blind”
Mark J. Holmes, “Happy Anniversary”
Maryam Ishak, “Snow Falls on All”
Jose F Serrano, “Don Jose”
Linda Swanson, “In fields of green, I cry”

Academic Essays

1st Place: Guillermo Aguilar, “An Oligopoly on Wall Street”
2nd Place: Cynthia Retuerto, “The Humane Society”
          Tied with Kevin Fetish, "Differences in Democracy/The Song Remains the Same"
3rd Place: Kristopher Perovic “Science and Skepticism”

Honorable Mention:
Jason De La Cruz, “Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream”
Kevin Fetish, “Ethical Monotheism Among Ancient Peoples”
Kathy Lopez, “Is Google Making Us Smarter or Stupider?”

Fiction
1st Place: Brionne Ramsingh, “Prequel to Iliad” and “Sequel to Iliad”
2nd Place: Cynthia Andreux, “The Boy Who Wanted to Be Tall”
3rd Place: Thomas Feliciano, “Familiar Enemy”
          Tied with Genessa Terrizzi, “Death Walker”

Honorable Mention:
Kevin Byrd, Untitled
Kimberly Gomez, “Don't Go”

Creative Nonfiction
1st Place: Jaine Radel, Untitled
2nd Place: David Hernandez, “Diversity in American Life”
3rd Place: Megan Portorreal, “My Fiancé’s 23rd Birthday”

Honorable Mention:
Jason De La Cruz, Untitled and “My name is Jason De La Cruz”
Carolyn Guevara, Untitled

Thank you to everyone for your support in making the contest a success! We will be publishing the winning entries in a writing contest magazine and holding a reading of winning entries in spring. We hope to see you there!