Winners of the 2008 High School Writing Awards

Front (Left to Right): Sarah Volpenhein, Ariel Neumann, Claudia Carrelli
Back:  Chelsey Parton, Rachel Fogg, Gabrielle Hempel, Allison Reuther

Writing Samples
"Erica" by Sarah Volpenhein
"The Haunting of a Memory" by Katie Puterbaugh
"To Crush a Rose" by Peyton Hahn

Essay
First Place: Sarah Volpenhein - Ursuline 
Honorable Mention: Paul Cusick - Covington Catholic
Honorable Mention: Julia Tasset - Ursuline            

Fiction
First Place: Allison Reuther - Madeira
Honorable Mention: Claudia Carrelli - Mariemont
Honorable Mention:  Matthew Smith - Covington Catholic  

Poetry
First Place:  Gabrielle Hempel - McAuley 
Honorable Mention:  Rachel Fogg - Ursuline
Honorable Mention: Ariel Nuemann - Ursuline

  
Judges' Bios

Front (Left to Right):  Drew Shannon, Jacob Dean, Liz Mason
Back:  David Higgins, Karl Zuelke, Alex Shields

Mary Baumgartner is a sophomore who has done a spectacular job working as a writing consultant in the Mount's Writing Center.  She grew up on a farm in southern Indiana and still spends a lot of time out in the barn.  Mary has pronounced Francophilic tendencies and is blessed with abundant artistic talent.  One day she hopes to live in Paris, starving happily with paint in her hair.

Elizabeth Bookser Barkley, Ph.D., is the author of three books: Loving the Everyday: Meditations for Moms, Woman to Woman: Seeing God in Daily Lifeand When You Are a Godparent. She worked for three years as a reporter for the Catholic Telegraph and has written numerous feature articles for national and regional publications including Catholic Update, Catholic Digest, St. Anthony Messenger, Young and Healthy, and  Cincinnati Magazine. She was the 2000 Ohio Carnegie/CASE Professor of the Year.

Jacob Dean is a senior double-majoring in English and Communication Studies. He is involved in several activities at the Mount, including serving as Editor-in-Chief of Lions On Line literary magazine. In addition, he is a member of the Mount’s Honors Program, Alpha Chi Honor Society and Lambda Pi Eta Communications Honor Society, as well as a one of the initial members of Cincy Light, an on-campus service organization promoting a cleaner society through public transportation.

Curtis Doxsey is currently a freshman English major at the College of Mount St. Joseph. He attended and then graduated from La Salle High School in 2007. After obtaining his Bachelor's Degree in English, he hopes to go on to graduate school for further education in the field of literature. His dream is to write novels for a living. He has also considered becoming a librarian in an effort to introduce others to great literature.

Tom Frey is a freshman at the College of Mount St. Joseph, studying Written Communication as his minor. He won this writing contest when he himself was a sophomore in high school. He also won two honorable mentions in the Cincinnati Overture Awards for submissions in Creative Writing, as well as published poetry in several anthologies. Tom wishes to eventually write books for a living, and is always on the lookout for the next idea. He hopes to publish a fantasy novel before he graduates from the College.

David Higgins is a junior History major with minors in Philosophy and American Studies. David is a 2005 graduate of La Salle High School, and is now contemplating a future in graduate school. He keeps a busy schedule balancing work and academics, and is currently formulating a paper to be presented at the biennial conference of the Women's and Gender Historians of the Midwest this coming July.

Natalie Lukac is a junior at the College of Mount St. Joseph. She will graduate in December with a major in English. She is glad to have had the opportunity to participate in this contest. Natalie was very impressed with all the submissions, especially coming from such young writers. It certainly made the poetry very difficult to choose from! To each of the winners: congratulate yourselves for providing distinct and memorable poems!

Elizabeth Taryn Mason, Ph.D., has been teaching literature at writing at the collegiate level for eleven years.  As an M.F.A. student in Creative Writing: Poetry at Bowling Green State University she was awarded a full-time Teaching Fellowship and won honorable mention for her poem, "Espial," in the Associated Writing Program's Intro. Awards.  As a doctoral student at Case Western Reserve University, she continued to teach full-time on a Teaching Fellowship and was awarded the Graduate Dean's Instructional Excellence Award for teaching at the graduate assistant level, the Communication Arts and Science's Dissertation Fellowship and the Roger B. Solomon Dissertation Fellowship.  She currently teaches literature and writing at Northern Kentucky University and at The College of Mount St. Joseph, where she serves as the faculty advisor to Lions-on-Line, the student-operated literary magazine.

Ann Mazzaro is a junior English major struggling to find an aspiring position upon graduation in 2009.  She is a Cincinnati native, but her heart remains on the beach.  Ann has worked in the Mount's Writing Center since August of 2006.  She enjoys reading, writing, and Thomas Kinkade paintings, her favorite of which is Stairway to Paradise. 

Paul Arrand Rodgers is a sophomore English student with minors in Written Communication and Psychology. Paul is involved with the Lion’s Roar Marching Band and Campus Ministry, and is a regular contributor to the Mount’s Dateline publication. Outside of class, he writes fiction, poetry, and screenplays.

Drew Shannon, Ph.D., earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in English from the University of Cincinnati and a bachelor's degree in English and Communication Arts from Xavier University. A native of Atlanta, he grew up in Austin, Texas, but has lived in Cincinnati since the mid-1980s. He currently is working to expand his doctoral dissertation, entitled The Deep Old Desk: the Diary of Virginia Woolf , into a book. He has presented at numerous literary conferences in the United States and England, on writers such as Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood, David Leavitt, D. H. Lawrence, and Doris Lessing, and has published essays in literary journals and in a forthcoming book on Woolf from Palgrave Macmillan press in England.  In his free time, Professor Shannon enjoys visiting England and Italy, collects books (9,000 and counting), loves to watch and discuss films, enjoys music, and is currently learning piano and Italian. He wishes he had the patience to garden. Drew currently teaches literature and writing at the College of Mount St. Joseph.

Alex Shields is a sophomore at the Mount with a major interest in History, and he offhandedly dabbles in creative writing. Alex is the author of several works, including Jurassic Park IV, The China Invasion, War of the Worlds: 2010, and is currently working on the script for an epic Julius Caesar movie that’s based on the man’s life rather than Shakespeare’s play. Sadly, none of these projects has been completed (nor are they likely to be in the next fifty years). Upon graduating from college, Alex hopes to get a job either as a news reporter or as a research/historical consultant for a film industry.

Karl Zuelke, MFA, Ph.D., studied English lit. and biology at the University of Cincinnati, received his MFA in fiction from Indiana University, and went back to UC for his doctorate, where he produced a dense and extremely difficult dissertation on American nature and science writing.  Dr. Zuelke is in his fifth year teaching and directing the Writing Center at the Mount.  In his spare time he likes to build furniture in his basement, he likes fishing and skiing, and he'll take to the woods with a backpack at any opportunity.