Creative Writing Awardees Discuss Passion for English, Writing

On April 16th, Duke English announced the winners of its 2019 Creative Writing Contests. To learn more about the awardees and their relationships with creative writing, I reached out to the winners.

I previously interviewed Aaron VanSteinberg, pictured top middle, to learn more about his thesis. I wasn’t surprised to learn that his poetry collection, “Arrivals,” was inspired by Denise Levertov and Robert Creeley—the same poets he studied for his thesis. VanSteinberg, who hails from Wichita, Kansas, found out about the English Department’s competition after “poking around on the department’s website.” The poetry collection, which won the Anne Flexner Award for Poetry, is “concerned with the problem of ‘knowing’ and all the feelings associated with that problem.” VanSteinberg, a senior majoring in English with a minor in German, still considers himself new to poetry. He feels encouraged by the award to continue exploring the field and write more over the summer.

Caroline Armstrong, pictured top right, recently received the Anne Flexner Award for Fiction. Her story is about a child eating pizza alone, and focuses on the “kid’s experience of loneliness and his attempt to meet expectations of what his social life should look like.” Studying Psychology and English, she read about the contest in an email sent to English majors. “I have wanted to be a fiction writer since age seven and still have this dream, so considering that it has lasted this long it’s a pretty strong dream for me and I very much intend to make it a reality,” she explains. The junior from Richmond, Virginia, plans to pursue distinction in the English Department with a creative writing project that will allow her to gain more exposure to fiction writing.

Academy of American Poets Prize Honorable Mention winner Carrie Wang, pictured bottom right, is a tentative English and Economics double-major from Johns Creek, Georgia. The freshman found out about the competition after scrolling through the English Department website. Her poetry collection, titled “Along the Curves of Cities,” “explore(s) change and the breakdown of communication”—themes that Wang thought often about as a first-year. She has “wanted to write for a living since elementary school,” and is sure that wherever her future takes her creative writing will play a role.

Thalia Halloran, a freshman from Bloomington, Indiana, pictured bottom middle, is “probably going to be an English major.” She received second place in the George P. Lucaci Award for Creative Non-Fiction for her piece “Excuse Me,” which tackles “instances of sexism and harassment that I and other women in my life have experienced.” In addition to this award, Halloran also received the Reynolds Price Award for a fiction submission titled “Cheshire,” which  is about “the relationship between a mother and son, and how people cope with loss in strange ways.” She found out about the English Department’s creative writing competition before even applying to Duke, when she browsed creative writing programs at different universities she was considering. Halloran plans to pursue creative writing professionally, which may include receiving an MFA after graduation.

First place of the George P. Lucaci Award for Creative Non-Fiction winner Annie Delmedico, pictured bottom left, studies History with a minor in Education. The senior from Raleigh, North Carolina, heard about the competition when the professor of her creative nonfiction class, Writing the Self, sent an email with a flyer for it. Delmedico’s piece, “My Stranger,” is about “trying to unpack my complicated feelings I have about my dad.” She talks about memory, understanding someone she loves, and whether “we can ever truly know our loved ones.” In the future, she hopes to make a career out of creative writing in “whatever form that may take!”

Fellow awardees Nadia Kirmani and Valerie Muensterman could not be reached for comment. Congratulations to all the winners on this recognition of their hard work and creative skill!