The Seacoast Writers Association has announced the winners of the SWA 2009 Writers Contest.
For Poetry, first and third place was awarded to Wendy Galgan of Brooklyn, NY; second. Jean Doran or New London, NH; Honorable mentions to Charlotte Cox, Laconia, NH.
For Fiction, the first place winner was Thomas Griffin, Portsmouth, NH; second, Nancy Antonietti, Salem, NH; and third, Virginia DeLuca, Durham, NH.
Honorable Mentions to Frederick Pettigrew of Nottingham, NH and Mary Quale-Long of Rye, NH.
For Non-Fiction: Personal Essay, the first place winner was Catherine Schillinger of Sanbornville, NH; Jennifer Decker of Rochester, NH was awarded Second Place; Norman Phillips, Exeter, NH won Third Place. Carol Goff of Derry NH and Jean Lecher of Garden Grove, CA were Honorable Mentions in the Personal Essay Category
2009 SWA Writers 19th annual Contest -
Poetry Winner - First Place
Wendy Galgan, Brooklyn, NY
"YOU ARE TRAPPED IN THAT BRIGHT MOMENT WHERE YOU LEARNED YOUR DOOM"*
- Samuel R. Delany, The Fall of the Towers
This morning, six fighter planes
flew over our barn, following
the roof line straight across the island
and on to Brunswick Naval Air Station.
Long before they appeared
– low, loud, swift against high azure
their rush and rumble announced them.
I stopped, standing between
my husband and my father,
and held my hand to my eyes,
searching the skies for whatever
made the air around me
and the earth beneath me thrum.
And, for a moment,
we were no longer nearly
three years and nearly
four hundred miles away
from that high blue September morning.