2015 Glazner Contest Winners

Posted by admin in Creative Writing

With students from 87 high schools across the country submitting 140 entries to the 2015 Glazner Prize for Creative Writing, competition was fierce. This year’s winners were announced this week, chosen by SFUAD’s Creative Writing and Literature Department co-chairs Matt Donovan and Dana Levin.

Named for the founder of the Creative Writing Program, Greg Glazner, the Glazner contest was conceived as a way to engage creative writing high school students across the country with SFUAD’s Creative Writing Department.  Winners receive publication of their award-winning writing in Jackalope. Additionally, the first place winner receives an iPad with retina display; second place receives a Kindle Fire; and third place receives a $50 Amazon gift card.

And the winners are…

Alexandra Spensley is a junior at Avon Lake High School in Ohio. She was named a finalist in the Sierra Nevada College High School Writing Contest, and her recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cadaverine, The Postscript Journal, Canvas Lit, and Crashtest. Her writing has also received recognition from the Live Poets Society of New Jersey and Vincennes University. Read her award-winning piece, “Portrait of a City.”

Joseph Jordan-Johnson is a senior at Oak Park and River Forest High School in Illinois, who says she doesn’t take herself “very seriously—I’m not entirely sure if this is good or bad.  I enjoy long walks on the beach and effective discourse on racial equality in America. I believe the written word is the most raw form of communication, stripping narratives of the language that makes them whole, and creating art within the shells you made. Also, I’m irrationally in love with Beyonce.” Read his award-winning piece. “Hair.”

Emily Zhang is a high school junior from Richard Montgomery High School in Maryland. Her writing has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the Poetry Society of England, the Sierra Nevada Review, and Princeton University. She enjoys watching reality television. Read her award-winning piece, “History of Navigation.”