2002 Eudora Welty Writing Awards

Two students from Mississippi high schools took top honors in the 15th annual Eudora Welty Awards for Creative Writing presented during opening-day ceremonies of the 29th annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference.

Kilby Allen won first prize, $500, for her short story "An Order for Compline." Allen, from Indianola, wrote the story while a student at the Mississippi School for Math and Science in Columbus. Leann Peterson won this year's second-place award and $250 for her poem "Knots: A Sestina." A student at Jackson Preparatory School, she lives in Brandon. The winning story and poem were selected from high school entries across the state.

Katie McKee, a selection committee member who teaches English and Southern Studies, said Allen's "story demonstrates a keen sense of timing revealed in its first sentence: 'The November before I graduated from high school, I saw God in the middle of the Mississippi Delta.' The story turns a well-worn situation from real teenage life into a moment of spiritual renewal for the characters involved, characters whom the writer brings to life in the space of only four well-managed pages."

Peterson's poem, McKee wrote, "demonstrates the power of language to name the meaning locked in an ordinary situation. Love transforms the speaker's 'barbie-doll heart' in a reflection on childhood that is actually a sophisticated use of a difficult literary form, the sestina."

The 15-year-old annual contest is sponsored by the Center and is named for Mississippi's First Lady of Letters, who passed away on July 23, 2001. Frances Patterson of Tupelo, a longtime English and creative writing teacher and a member of the Center's State Advisory Committee, established and endowed the awards in 1987 to recognize and encourage the writing talents and efforts of Mississippi high school students.