Dr. Chris Ellery of the English faculty won first prize in the second annual Alexander and Dora Raynes Poetry Competition administered by Jewish Currents magazine.
Ellery’s poem, “Shekinah,” was selected as the best out of more than 700 poems submitted to the national contest, which was judged by poet and playwright Joan Larkin. The poem is about the friendship of two boys, Arab and Jew, in Bethlehem just before the partition of Palestine. It was included along with the entries submitted by the other 39 contest finalists in a new poetry collection published in May by Blue Thread, the book imprint of Jewish Currents.
Meanwhile, a paper written by Dr. Jeffrey Schonberg of the English faculty was named the Best Research Paper in Language, Literature and Linguistics at the third annual International Conference of the Global Science and Technology Forum earlier this year in Bangkok, Thailand.
Schonberg presented his paper titled “Discursive Competition: Narrative Tensions in Chinese Literacy and Socio-Religious Discourse” at the conference, and it was also published in the conference proceedings.
Also, Dr. Terry Dalrymple of the English faculty contributed five short stories featured in Texas 5 X 5, a new anthology of short stories by Texas writers published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press.
Edited by Laurie Champion, a professor of English at San Diego State University, the anthology features the work of five Texas authors who have written interconnected stories that share characters; a Texas setting, imagery or style; and in some cases, direct plot connections.
