The best literary works from DVC’s most creative writers were awarded for their talents for the first time at the first annual Creative Writing Awards.

The awards ceremony started at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, April 29, and lasted for approximately an hour inside the Business and Foreign Language Room. The winners along with those with who earned honorable mentions presented their award winning written work to an audience that packed the entire room. As they presented, the audience remained respectfully silent and listened intently.

The short stories in the fiction section ranged from serious stories about living with chemotherapy to a light hearted tale of lost love, but were similar in that they were all captivating to listen to. While these were works of fiction, the personal lives of the authors were made visible in the stories and poems they wrote.

Forrest Nguyen, who received an honorable mention, shared that he didn’t go look for any inspiration for his poem, ‘Sonnet, Rhythm, 1.’

“I just saw things and started to write,” he said. “That’s what any other poet would do.”

Vincent Della Monte’s short story, ‘What If?’ received an honorable mention for a fictional version of real life in what he called the, “missed connection on Craigslist that happened in Texas.”

His story follows a character named Victor who falls in love with a woman whom he never sees again. He presented his work in a light hearted, humorous and slightly self-critical light that kept the audience following each step of his plot.

The awards ceremony was put together by the English department, with help from the creative writing students at DVC.

According to Jessica Barksdale, a mythology professor at DVC, 83 poems and 24 short stories were submitted to the contest, resulting in six winners and four honorable mentions. Barksdale hosted the event and presented each of the speakers to the audience.

“We enlisted our creative writers, who committed to writing stories for the contest,” says Barksdale. “They submitted what they wanted to.”

Barksdale and Susan Brown were the judges for the event, and while they disagreed on the order of the placing of the winners, they had no disagreements on which of the poems and stories would be finalists.

Barksdale and other professors are looking forwards to see what other great works of literature will come from DVC students in the coming years.