Creative Writers Society Announces Prize Winners

May 13, 2005

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MACOMB, IL - - The Creative Writer’s Society (CWS) Club at Western Illinois University has announced the winners of its annual contest recognizing literary achievement in concert with Western’s campus theme, civic engagement.

Junior Gregory Pickett (Country Club Hills, IL) won the poetry prize with his work, “Deluge.” Kathleen Clauson, a supervisor in Western’s Physical Sciences Library in Currens Hall, won the narrative prize for her fiction, “Songbird.”

The contest was open to students, faculty and community members.

“Among issues identified for the writers to focus on were community participation, cooperation, promotion of multiculturalism, advocating on behalf of others, as well as addressing historical, political, cultural and social issues that bring about greater public awareness,” said Adbul-Rasheed Na’Allah, chair of Western’s African American Studies department and a CWS adviser and journal editor.

Pickett and Clauson will each receive a $100 cash award during a reception in the fall, and their work will appear in a special issue of the CWS journal, The Flavor of Ink.

Pickett, a Board of Trustees Bachelor of Arts major, has been writing since he was in the first grade and met Gwendolyn Brooks, who had a major influence on him.

Clauson, who earned a bachelor’s degree (1982) in German and a master’s degree (1986) in economics from Western, is a published writer and provides a book review column and feature writing for the Macomb Journal and Eagle Publications.

Western English Professor David Stevenson headed the judges panel.

For more information, contact Na’Allah at 309/298-1181, or e-mail A-NaAllah@wiu.edu.

Posted By: University Communications (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
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