Robinson’s fiction wins writing award

Jennifer Robinson’s story titled “Fabula”, based on a true story, was told through the voice of a young girl named Ana Lucia, who lived in a village in Nicaragua. Ana Lucia takes her readers through a journey of life with her family in the small fishing village. The senior English and creative writing major was officially awarded the first Margaret Harvin Wilson Writing Award for her fiction short story on Nov. 11.

Robinson received inspiration for her story from a friend who serves as a missionary in Nicaragua during the summers. After hearing many of his wonderful stories about his experiences as a missionary there, she decided to write a story of her own based off of true occurrences in the village. She expressed that she was very excited and honored to win the prize of $1,000.

Jennifer Robinson

“He just loves the kids down there and he would go on and on about it and talk about how beautiful it was, so I kind of wanted to capture it,” Robinson said. “There are a lot of really good writers, I was actually very surprised.”

Approximately over 90 short stories, poems and plays were submitted to the contest. The pieces of work went through a preliminary review carried out by graduate students in the Master of Fine Arts program. After the entries were narrowed down and finalists were selected, a panel of five judges – Dr. Marty Lammon, Ken Procter, Dr. Beauty Bragg, David Muschell and Alice Friman – read each of the remaining selected pieces, discussed pros and cons, and selected a winner.

David Muschell, a professor of English, expressed there were a lot of great pieces submitted, but Robinson’s short story really stood out to him because of the maturity of her writing and the clear narrative voice.

“The narrator of the story was very consistent and clear. It takes place in another country and she captured this young voice, Hispanic girl’s voice, just really clearly,” Muschell said. “The story itself coming through this younger girl’s point of view was really a unique story, I was really captivated by it.”

Martin Lammon, Fuller E. Callaway and Flannery O’Connor coordinator, says Robinson’s piece was beautifully written, and he is truly delighted that her work was chosen as the winning piece.

“A lot of the stories that we see in the movies or that we read in books like ‘Twilight’, they are what I call diversions,” Lammon said. “They make us laugh or they make us cry even. They don’t truly touch us deeply, they don’t really move us. Whereas a story like hers rises to that level of art. If you listen to a beautiful concert that is beautifully played, it just moves you to tears, deeply touches your soul, and I think that’s what Jennifer’s story does. It rises to that level of high art that is really wonderful, and that’s because she’s written it so beautifully.”

Allen Gee, an assistant professor of English and creative writing, previously taught Robinson and expressed that he was not only impressed with the story that she submitted for the contest but with all of her fiction works that he has read.

“I liked the story a lot when I first saw it, and I knew it had a lot of promise,” Gee said. “She’s just such a strong writer all the way around. I’ve looked at a lot of stories that Jennifer’s written and I’m always just impressed by how much she revises and how much she works on her fiction.”

Dr. Mary Sue Coleman, University of Michigan president, and her husband Dr. Kenneth Coleman are the donors for the endowed Margaret Harvin Wilson Writing Award. The two established the award in honor of the late Margaret Harvin Wilson, Dr. Mary Sue Coleman’s mother. Wilson wrote a story for the Corinthian when she attended Georgia State College for Women in the ‘30s and won an award for her story.

Ken Proctor, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, says he is very pleased with the quality of all the entries and believes he and the other judges picked a great story to receive the first award.

“It’s really good to, especially for this first award, have a really strong pool of contestants, a very clearly strong winning entry because there’s a gift behind the award,” Proctor said. “We’re going to be sending information back to the donor on who won. We (also) videotaped the awards ceremony so the donor can see that. We have something that we can be very proud of.”

Posted by Lauren Davidson on Dec 2 2010. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.