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The 11th annual Hub City Creative
Writing Prizes have been awarded to Kerry Ferguson in poetry and Kam Neely in
fiction. Josette Davison received the new Scott Lax Prize, which given to emerging
writers over the age of 50. There were 41 submissions in the contest this year,
which is open to adults in Spartanburg County.
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Poetry
winner Kerry Ferguson is a playwright, a director, and an adjunct instructor of
Theatre at Wofford College. Her next project is writing and creating a new play
for the Spartanburg Youth Theatre's 2009-2010 season with her friend and colleague Sully White.
Of her poems, the judge wrote: "I was
impressed with this poet's fine ear for the rhythms of free verse and with her
courage to (paraphrasing Janet Burroway here) ‘surrender to the world of
image.'"
Second
place in poetry went to Christopher T. Wilkerson, an instructor in English at
Spartanburg Community College, and third to Carol Isler, a teacher at Byrnes
High School.
 Neely won the prize in fiction for a story
called "The Lease is Up." A Spartanburg native, Neely has studied at Furman
University, University College Dublin, the Johann-Wolfgang Goethe University
and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has published
fiction and poetry in several university journals and currently works in a
business founded by his great-grandfather in 1923. "The voice is eloquent
and real, the dialogue dead-on and never contrived or over-the-top," the judge wrote.
Second
place in fiction went to Cindy Witherspoon, a recent history graduate from Converse, and third to Brock Adams, an
English instructor at USC Upstate.
Josette Davison, who won the prize
for emerging writers over 50, is a retired art teacher from the Spartanburg Day School. She has a degree in journalism from the University of Cincinnati and attended Breadloaf Writers Conference in Vermont. The Scott Lax Prize was
established in 2008 and is underwritten by Hillcrest Publications of
Spartanburg to honor novelist Scott Lax of Ohio.
First place winners of these
contests receive a scholarship to the week-long Wildacres Writers Workshop in
Little Switzerland, N.C. in July. Second and third place winners receive full
or partial scholarships to Hub City's Writing in Place conference July 31-Aug.
2.
The
judge in the poetry contest was Dan Albergotti, a poet teaching at Coastal
Carolina University. The judge for the fiction was novelist Mark Powell, a
South Carolina native who teaches at Stetson University.
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