Congratulations to this year's winners in the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum’s annual Literary Contest!
Grades 9 – 10: Samantha Haviland, “How To Tell Your Friends You Love Them”
Grades 9 – 10 Honorable Mentions: Amiri Sykes, “Post-Mortem Photograph” Jenny Hu, “Requiem” Anna Fox, “A Courting Dance”
Grades 11 – 12: Maya Blumenthal, "Sonata in A Major"
Grades 11 – 12 Honorable Mentions: Ryan Taylor, "Roland (TR-808) Park"
Onassa Sun, "Telescope"
Undergraduate: Xaviera McCray, "Attachment"
Undergraduate Honorable Mention: Chidinma Opaigbeogu, "A Love Letter as it Comes to my Head"
Sofia Rosales, "Third Time"
The theme for 2019 – 2020 was “Love + Marriage” to honor the centennial of this daring and revolutionary couple's 1919 courtship and 1920 wedding. The Fitzgeralds’ literary and artistic works from the 1920s and 1930s are still regarded as groundbreaking, and The Fitzgerald Museum is pleased to honor these young writers as daring and revolutionary writers of their generation.
Thank you to Joe Taylor for judging the high school entries and to Kwoya Fagin Maples for judging the undergraduate category. Taylor is the editor at Livingston Press and a professor at the University of West Alabama, and Maples is a poet who teaches at the Alabama School of Fine Arts.
In its two years, the contest, which is open to high school students and college undergraduates, has received submissions from around the United States and overseas. This year's honorees attend schools and colleges in Alabama, California, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia. The three grade-level winners will receive a monetary prize, and all honorees will have their works published on the Fitzgerald Museum’s website.