At the 38th Annual
Bergen Community College (BCC) Bergen County Writing Contest Awards Ceremony and Luncheon on June 5, all four D-E finalists ended up winning awards - but the two rising seniors managed to secure first-place status:
George Georges '15 for Scholarly Essay and
David Lysenko '15 for Poetry. Recent graduates
Ellie Politi '14 and
Alana Solin '14 also placed in the same categories, respectively, and their winning pieces were published, along with the other 23 finalists’ work, in the 2014 issue of BCC’s annual literary magazine "Pegasus."
Entrants to the contest were current high school juniors or seniors whose submitted works dealt with this year's theme, "Overcoming Obstacles," in the following categories: The Essay, Short Stories, Poetry Collection or Drama.
According to AP English teacher Brian Kosnik, who also attended the ceremony, “Ellie and George won for essays that they had both written in my AP English class this past school year. George got First Prize in this category for [“Rupert’s Love’s Labor’s Never Succeeded,”] his essay about the novel Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence; Ellie received an Honorable Mention for her essay about Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.”
David ended up winning two awards - one for his essay on Moby Dick by Herman Melville, which David read for English faculty member John Deal's class, as well as his poem “Fire and Ice.” Meanwhile, Alana - who was sponsored by English department chair Fred Daly - won a poetry prize.
At the luncheon, the four winners got their copies of "Pegasus" - while George and David also received bookstore gift cards for their first-place wins - and met BCC faculty and fellow writers from around the county.