USU Creative Writing and Art Contest Announces 2025 Winners

USU’s Creative Writing and Art Contest has named the winners in its 32nd annual competition, recognizing the best creative work by USU students.

Open to all USU undergraduate students from all departments and disciplines, the contest awards top writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, as well as visual artists in drawing, painting, and photography. Each category received the blind review of expert judges drawn from the USU and Cache Valley arts community.

On her winning fiction piece, “Breathe,” Eva Nelson says, “This story is very special to me. A bit inspired by my own experiences. It is about two teenagers and their struggle within a religious environment. I wanted to illustrate the difficulty of disagreeing with loved ones about something so significant, while also exploring love and self-discovery.”

Chloe Scheve’s essay, “Moonchild,” was chosen as the nonfiction winner. “After attending Christopher Cokinos' reading of his new book Still as Bright last semester, I began thinking about what the moon meant to me and how I interact with her in my own life,” Chloe says. “Of course, I've heard the phrase ‘man in the moon’ many times, but my mother taught me to recognize the rabbit on the moon's surface rather than a man's face. I wanted to explore what it meant to worship the moon rather than a God, and how changing a hurtful narrative can offer you salvation.” 

Brook Haight was named poetry winner for selected poems: “your nature,” “fill me,” and “cycles.”  Brook reflects, “To me, one of the main functions of poetry is attempting to put a shape to those strange feelings that don't have words. With these pieces, I was trying to draw an outline around a certain type of pain for the reader to color in.”

“Self Portrait” by Kaisha Mills won first prize in art. On her winning piece, Kaisha says, "I used chiaroscuro lighting to emphasize the contrast between light and dark. I painted this at a time when I was figuring out who I was and what I wanted from life. I use art to reflect my inner thoughts and process my emotions. This highlights the complexities of identity that each of us are trying to navigate, acting as a reminder that we are not alone."

This is the tenth year the contest has partnered with USU’s international undergraduate literary journal, Sink Hollow. The winning entries will be published next month in a special contest issue, giving this work an international audience.

The winners will also get the chance to share their work locally when they will give a reading at Helicon West. “We’re incredibly proud of our students,” says Contest Director Ashley Wells, “and the Helicon West event is a truly special night, celebrating with our Logan community all of the talent and hard work coming out of USU.”

The Helicon West reading of the contest winning work will be at 7 p.m. on April 24 at the Logan Library. As always, Helicon is free, uncensored, open to the public, and will include an open-mic session.

ART                                                           
 
First:            Kaisha Mills, “Self Portrait”        
 
Second: Sterling Brinkerhoff, “Silent Sentinel”
 
Third:    Myleigh Peterson, “(Lucky Number) 5”             
 
Honorable Mention: Kaisha Mills, “Away; Thunder”
 
Honorable Mention: Lily Webb, “Watchman”
 
Honorable Mention: Brianna Pickering, “Return to Earth; The Great Divide”
 
Honorable Mention:   Abigail Hong, “Bone Appetit”
 
Honorable Mention:  Sarah Monsen, “Chocolate Cake”
 
Honorable Mention:    Myleigh Peterson, “(Lucky Number) 2”
 
Honorable Mention:   Hannah Smith, “Crest; Fairytale”
 
Honorable Mention:   Emmaline Jones, “Haven”
 
Honorable Mention: Crius Palus, “Before It Broke the Rules”
 
Honorable Mention: Addie Hemsley, “Almost”

FICTION
 
First:                 Eva Nelson, “Breathe”
 
Second:       Sarah Ellis, “Whatever Did Happen to Cornelius”
 
Third:              Hannah Smith, “Let’s Play Mermaids”

NONFICTION
 
First:                 Chloe Scheve, “Moonchild”
 
Second:             Yash Rivera, “Cyclical”
 
Third:             Luka Rompato, “Feast”

 POETRY
 
First:            Brook Haight, “your nature; fill me; cycles”
 
Second: Noelani Hadfield, “Too Much Information; Grandmother’s Cotton Fields;
 
Sea-Salt Atonement”
 
Third:           Rose Ivins, “Sign Of; 7:30 a.m. tuesday extinguisher; CRAQUELURE”