2013 Blanchan/Doubleday winners announced

Christine Fadden of Sheridan has won the Blanchan award for her entry, “5 Pieces of Flash Fiction.” Winner of the Doubleday award goes to Stefani Farris of Lander for her entry, “Grown Children.”

 Both will receive a cash award and the opportunity to read excerpts from their work at a scheduled public event to be held in conjunction with the WyoPoets annual workshop and poetry readings, which will take place in Casper April 19, at Metro Coffee Company, 241 S. David St., beginning at 7 P.M.

Honorable mentions in the Blanchan category went to Dainis Hazners of Story, and Yvette Whitaker of Cody. For Doubleday, honorable  mentions went to Leah Shlachter, of Jackson, and India Hayford of Casper.

A combined total of 54 entries were received.

Judge for the awards was Katharine Coles. Her fifth and sixth collections of poems, The Earth Is Not Flat and Flight, are forthcoming in 2013 and 2015 from Red Hen Press. Coles has published in The Paris Review, The Gettysburg Review, Poetry, Seneca, and many more; served as the inaugural director of the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute for the Poetry Foundation; is a professor at the University of Utah; and is a 2012 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow. In 2010 Coles traveled to Antarctica to write poems under the auspices of the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. Coles will also read from her work at the public reading event in Casper and the following day, facilitate the WyoPoets workshop at the Hilton Garden Inn. 

The Neltje Blanchan and Frank Nelson Doubleday awards are made possible through the generosity of private donor Neltje. The Blanchan award is given for the best writing that is informed by a relationship with the natural world; the Doubleday award is given for the best writing by a woman writer.

Fadden has published in several journals, received fellowships/residencies from Jentel, Brush Creek and the Vermont Studio Center, among others, and is currently working on a novel set in Ocean City, New Jersey.

Farris has published in several journals, and has received residencies from Ucross and the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska. She is currently working on a novel.

The Blanchan/Doubleday awards program is an annual competition administered by the Wyoming Arts Council. For more information about the awards visit the WAC website wyoarts@state.wy.us or call 777-7742.