The Cameron University Department of Communication, English and Foreign Languages recently honored several CU students for their creative writing this semester.
Julian Ebacher, Lawton, won the Leigh Holmes Prize for Creative Nonfiction for an essay titled “And the Earth Abideth Forever.” James Blake Howard, Elgin, was runner-up, receiving honorable mention for his essay “Metamorphosis: Transforming Curiosity into Scientific Purpose.” Cameron faculty members Dr. William Carney, Leah Chaffins, Dr. John Hodgson and Dr. John G. Morris judged submissions for the annual contest.
Katie Gyring, Lawton, won the John G. Morris Poetry Prize competition with “Phasic.” Jess Garoutte, Duncan, took second place with her poem “The Equation,” and Isabel Garcia, Lawton, won third for “The Ever-Singular Bird.” Ebacher was judged first honorable mention for his poem “And the Rocks Rent,” and Emily Womack, Marlow, received second honorable mention for “The First Time You Made Love Without a Shirt On.” The competition was judged by Paul Juhasz, a visiting writer to CU during the 2023-24 academic year whose “Fires of Heraclitus” is a finalist for the 2025 Oklahoma Book Award in Poetry.
Both annual contests are open to all Cameron undergraduate students. Longtime faculty member Dr. Leigh Holmes established the Leigh Holmes Prize for Creative Nonfiction shortly before his retirement in 2003 to encourage Cameron students to write creative nonfiction well. Morris, a professor of English, established the John G. Morris Poetry Prize in 2006 to honor his mother, the late Marian Cary Miles Morris-Zepp.
“And the Earth Abideth Forever” and “Phasic” will be published in “The Gold Mine,” Cameron’s literary arts magazine. In addition, program faculty nominated Ebacher’s essay, Gyring’s poem and “Every Breath You Take,” a short story by Grace Malt, Lawton, for the Associated Writers and Writing Program Intro series competition. Winners of that national competition will be published in three national literary journals.
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PR#25-078
