Thursday, January 18, 2024
2024: Schedule of Readings
19th
Annual:
Scissortail Creative Writing
Festival
April
4 - 6, 2024
East
Central University
Ada,
Oklahoma
Thursday, April 4
I. 9:30 – 10: 45 Estep Auditorium
Tina Carlson: Santa Fe, New Mexico
A
Guide to Tongue Tie Surgery
Walter
Bargen: Ashland, Missouri
Down the Rabbit Hole of War
Mark
Walling: East Central University
One Dalmatian
II. 11:00 – 12: 10 Estep Auditorium
Nikki Herrin: Wayne, Oklahoma
Progression
Wendy
Dunmeyer: Lawton, Oklahoma
Importance of Words
Alan
Berecka: Sinton, Texas
Selected Poems
III. 11:00 - 12:10 Regents Room
Clarence
Wolfshohl: Fulton, Missouri
Lo, the Gods
Sally
Rhoades: Albany, New York
When the Roses are in Bloom
Josh
Grasso: East Central University
The
Domovoi
IV. 11:00 – 12:10 Boswell Chapel
Lyman
Grant: Harrisonburg, Virginia
November
Constellation
Keely Record: Tulsa, Oklahoma
From
Here
Brady Peterson: Belton, Texas
Letters from the Edge of the Round
Earth
*** Lunch ***
19th Annual Scissortail: Featured Authors
Recently awarded the Don Munro Leadership in the Arts Award, the 2021 Governor’s Arts Award, twice named “Best Poet in Arkansas” by the Arkansas Times, and nominated for Arkansas State Poet Laureate and Hot Springs Woman of the Year, her fierce and powerful poetry has been nominated six times for The Pushcart Prize, as well as Bettering American Poetry 2015, and Best of the Net 2016, 2018, 2021— awarded in 2022. Ten of Kai’s poems are going to the moon with the Lunar Codex project, and on earth they have appeared or are forthcoming in POETRY, Prairie Schooner, Best of the Net, Cultural Weekly, SOLSTICE, Bellevue Literary Review, TAB, The Night Heron Barks, Sinister Wisdom, Lavender Review, Tupelo Press, and elsewhere. Coggin is Editor at large at SWWIM and is Associate Editor at The Rise Up Review. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival. She lives with her wife and their two adorable Fu dogs in Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas.
The son of Mississippi Delta cotton farmers, Steve is currently a professor in the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College. He has two daughters – Lena Yarbrough and Antonina Parris – and is married to the Polish writer Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough. They divide their time between Boston and Krakow.
Steve is an aficionado of jazz and bluegrass music, which he plays on guitar, mandolin and banjo, often after midnight.
2024: Scissortail Biographies
Aly Allen is a trans, neurodivergent poet, parent, and veteran. She is the author of Paying for Gas with Quarters (Middle West Press, 2023) and the chapbook Approaching Valhalla (Bottlecap Press, 2022). She has been an editor, reviewer, and reader for publications including: The Cimarron Review, Consequence, Glass Mountain, & Inkling. She founded the Military Memoirs Workshop (for veterans, servicemembers, and their families) and Edited the Military Memoirs Journal, featuring the work of a Vietnam veteran and their daughter. Her recent publications appear in: One Art Poetry, Panoply, new words (press), Press Pause, Consequence, New Note Poetry, and @ThreadsLitMag. She won the 2019 Lillie Robertson Prize for Poetry. She holds an MFA creative writing from Oklahoma State University, where she now teaches. Follow her on Threads and Instagram @notasquirrel
Dr. Rubeena Anjum is an educator and a psychologist. Now retired, she is one of the members of the Richardson Poets Group and Dallas Poets Community. Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, The Bosphorus Review of Books, Artistic Antidote UMN Clinical Affairs, Corona Virus Anthology by Austin International Poetry Festival-2020, Art on the Trails: Mending 2021 Chapbook, Word City Literary Journal, Southwestern American Literature, and The Writer’s Garret-Common Language Project: Networks Anthology 2023, among others. Her full-length collection of poems by Finishing Line Press-2023 is titled My Photo Album.
Rilla Askew is the author of five novels, a book of stories, and a collection of creative nonfiction. She’s received the American Book Award, Western Heritage Award, Oklahoma Book Award, and Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her essays, poems, and short fiction have appeared in Nimrod, Tin House, World Literature Today, AGNI, and elsewhere. Askew’s novel Prize for the Fire, about Early Modern English writer Anne Askew, was a finalist for the 2023 Oklahoma Book Award. A new collection of stories, The Hungry & The Haunted, will be published by Belle Point Press in Fall 2024.
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
2024 Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest
Monday, October 9, 2023
20th Annual R. Darryl Fisher Creative Writing Contest
East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma presents
Oklahoma’s Most Prestigious High School Writing Competition
Fiction: 1st Place $250; 2nd place: $150; 3rd Place $100
Poetry: 1st Place $250; 2nd place: $150; 3rd Place $100
20 Honorable Mention Awards of $25 each
Guidelines:
* All
* Poetry (up to 100 lines) or Short Fiction (up to 6,000 words) is acceptable.
* Limit 5 poems and 1 short fiction piece per student.
* All entries must be the original work of the student.
* All entries must be neatly typed; please double-space fiction entries.
* Entries will not be returned, so keep your originals.
* No identifying marks should be on the manuscript itself, except for the title.
* Provide cover page with contact information: 1) Student’s name; 2) High School and Teacher’s name 3) Classification (senior, junior, etc.) 4) Phone number, Email and student’s mailing address. (Work submitted without a mailing address for each student will not be judged)
* Work may be submitted through conventional mail or email.
DEADLINE: Conventional mail must be postmarked on or before Friday, February 9, 2024. Email entries must be sent via email by 11:59 p.m. on February 9, 2024. There will be no exceptions. Winners will be notified and awards will be presented to students during the annual Scissortail Festival at ECU, April 8, 2023. The names of winning writers will be posted online at: www.ecuscissortail.blogspot.com.
Poetry Submissions: send work electronically as attached files to jgrasso@ecok.edu or mail to Dr. Joshua Grasso,
Fiction Submissions: send work electronically as attached files to mwalling@ecok.edu or mail to Dr. Mark Walling,
Contest Information: Dr. Joshua Grasso (580-235-3197); Dr. Mark Walling (580-559-5440). Scissortail Creative Writing Festival Information: Dr. Ken Hada (580-559-5557)
Friday, October 6, 2023
Tribute to Dr. Hugh Tribbey
With sadness, we acknowledge the passing of colleague and cofounder of the Scissortail Festival, Dr. Hugh Tribbey, October 5, 2023.