Nonfiction

Wildfire-Hellfire | Ralph Ryan

Nonfiction

‘Wildfire-Hellfire’ was one of many hair-raising experiences I lived during a fourteen year wild land firefighting career. It was the most exciting time of my life and after reliving the adventures over and over again in my mind, I’ve come to the point where I want to tell my story. Transforming thoughts to paper has been as challenging an adventure as it has been enjoyable. I love the craft and strive to put the reader with me, as totally into the moment as possible, to let them feel the intensity. For me, that’s the magic of words. —Ralph Ryan

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Snake Dreaming: Speculations on Human and Reptile Consciousness | M. Garrett Bauman

Nonfiction

Poetry Writing Contest 24 (2009)
First Place
I began this piece by narrating my encounters with snakes. But it remained flat until I accepted that something deeper was going on. Time for research. Reptile science proved to be as poetic as myth and symbols; I grudgingly came to realize that snake “dream” consciousness painfully exposes humans’ failure to evolve beyond our primitive, violent origins. At the same time I felt a comic detachment from the reptile “philosophy,” much as we regard our own dream state. You cannot simply write what you already know. Writing must change your ideas or it is merely report writing. — M. Garrett Bauman

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Cracking Open | Patricia Brieschke

Nonfiction

Nonfiction Writing Contest XXIII (2008)
First Place
Listen to your work as you read it aloud. Ears don’t lie. Rewrite, then rewrite again. Put it aside for a while, then return and rewrite again. Read it to someone whose ear you trust and embrace the feedback, If they say “get rid of a phrase, a sentence, a section, a character,” take however long you need to stew, then open yourself to the critique. If you cut material, stash it in your own slush pile to be used somewhere else. The slash and burn part of writing is exhilarating. And, yes, less is more.. — Patricia Brieschke

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The Vacationers | Maria Caruso

Nonfiction

Maria Caruso has won the 15th New Millennium Nonfiction Prize for “The Vacationers.” She will receive $1,000 and publication both online and in print. A Note from the Author: “I’ve shifted Eleanor Roosevelt’s idea about life, ‘The thing you think cannot do is the thing you must do,’ and applied it to my writing. I try

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Requiem for a Dream | Laura S. Distelheim

Nonfiction

Poetry Writing Contest XIII (2002)
First Place
Soon after the incident conveyed in “Requiem” occurred, I realized that, in coming to know this man and in witnessing the injustice done to him, I had been privy to both the heroism and the evil which lie, often unsuspected, beneath the surface of ordinary lives. My hope in writing this piece was to draw both of them into the light. — Laura S. Distelheim

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Tilos | Trent Moorman

Nonfiction

Nonfiction Writing Contest XII (2001)
First Place
Don’t write about something interesting, write about something odd, like nose hair, or the guy who tried to pogo-stick across Czechoslovakia while playing ‘Freebird’ on a viola the whole time. No other songs, just ‘Freebird’.. — Trent Moorman

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Leslie Garrett Writes His Way Back | Don Williams

Nonfiction

In the 1960s Leslie Garrett was positioned to claim a place in the pantheon of important American writers. The Knoxvillian-to-be was living the life of expatriate writer in Paris in 1966 when he learned that his first novel, The Beasts, had won the prestigious Maxwell Perkins Award, named for the legendary editor of Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe and William Faulkner. Then Garrett disappeared from view…

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