Humanities Express

Writing Contest to Honor Alumni

Ohio has a wealth of home-grown literary talent, and no one knows that better than The Journal, the award-winning, national literary magazine published by The Ohio State University. For over thirty years, The Journal has been printing the best writing by established and emerging authors, some of whom are publishing their first stories, literary essays, and poems in The Journal´s pages. This year The Journal editors, creative writing faculty members Kathy Fagan and Michelle Herman, are pleased to announce the first annual Alumni Flash Prose Writing Contest to honor OSU alumni. First-place winner will receive $500 and publication in The Journal alongside the work of such major writers as Cynthia Ozick, Floyd Skloot, and Brenda Hillman.

Professor Fagan (The Charm; Moving and St Rage) and Professor Herman (The Middle of Everything; Dog) are instituting the writing contest to encourage alumni to reconnect with OSU and their own love for literature. "It´s too easy to lose track of that," Professor Herman says. "After people get busy with careers, with family, something that once mattered greatly can easily get misplaced. We want to welcome them home."

Herman and Fagan have edited the magazine together since 1990, while teaching at OSU and working on their own writing. "It´s a labor of love," Professor Fagan says. "We wouldn’t do it otherwise."

For fifteen years, Herman and Fagan´s labor of love has been recognized nationally. Work which first appeared in The Journal has been reprinted in the annual Pushcart Prize Anthology, the prestigious Best American Poetry series, and numerous prize-winning story collections. Recently, Herman and Fagan themselves received the highly-respected Ohioana Award for Editorial Excellence.

Each year the editors read approximately 3000 manuscripts from writers around the world, all vying for publication in The Journal. Professors Fagan and Herman, excited about finding the former buckeye with the best unpublished story or literary essay under 1000 words, invite OSU alumni to submit their writing to one of OSU’s most famous "exports." Entries must be postmarked by September 30, 2005.