They have journeyed from students’ imaginations, to notebooks and laptops, to Moraine Valley’s annual literary competition.

Now, the winning entries in are ready to take flight into the Illinois Skyway Collegiate Conference Writers Competition and Festival.

Winners in the MV literary competition were announced last week in four categories–fiction, poetry, nonfiction and drama/screenplay. This year, the competition had 82 entries, a submission-high in recent years.

The top five entries in each category have advanced to compete against submissions from all eight colleges in the Skyway Conference. Winners of that competition will be announced on Nov. 9 at the Skyway writers festival, which is being held at Moraine Valley this year.

Some students were surprised by their recognition.

“I felt like it was a piece of writing to be proud of, but not first place,” said Eileen McInerney, who placed first in poetry. 

With images of sheer emotion and honesty in her piece, “Anchor Me Down,” McInerney details the nuances of familial relationships, in this case a relationship with her older sister that had been  “rocky for a long time.” 

“Not knowing how to emphasize the type of connection you have with a person can make words lose meaning and weight in the readers’ hearts,” she said. “It’s important I highlight my relationships truthfully. If not, I would feel like I am being fake.”

She said she liked to compare “intimate parts of life to real-world things, like crashing waves to a relationship with someone, or the smell of smoke to a memory.” 

Meanwhile, Valentina Villadiego Contreras, who wrote the second-place fiction story, “Don’t Forget Your Smile,” didn’t give much thought about how her piece would be perceived or placed. 

“It was a way I could express how I feel. I didn’t expect anything from this.” An international student from Colombia, Contreras says, “One of the best things that writing has given me has been developing my creativity and my confidence as a second language learner.”

Her story is about the  issues a bad work environment can bring to one’s headspace. “I’m glad it’s speaking to people,” she said. “I just hope no one I work with reads it.”

The subject matter in the winning pieces ranges from creative nonfiction winner Rain Abdelkarim’s personal essay on her name to fiction winner Emmett Grady’s short story involving Jesus Christ and labor unions. 

Abdelkarim said writing her personal essay, “A Name That Paints the Whole Picture” was “cathartic” and “like journaling.” 

“It’s something I’ve always thought about,” she said. “I think I’ve reached the pinnacle of my journey with my name.”

Grady juxtaposed the old and the new for his satirical story, “Air Jesus,” which was inspired by an assigned topic on unionization.

“I wrote about unions and the 12 apostles, and I was able to go from there,” he said “I knew Judas was going to betray Jesus by unionizing, so I knew how to finish it.” 

“I had this idea about ‘Air Jesuses’ and how they had superhuman powers. I always thought the story between Jesus and Judas was interesting, so placing them into a nonprofit setting would be kind of funny.”

Writers festival to take place at Moraine Valley

Assistant Dean for Liberal Arts Lisa Kelsay, who serves as a co-curricular director for the Skyway conference, describes a typical student reaction to winning a literary award as “Initial shock.”  She loves students’ responses, “especially after they say, ‘I’m not an author,’ and I tell them, ‘Oh, you’re published and in a regional competition. That makes you one.” 

Kelsay, who’s been involved with similar events for more than a decade, emphasizes the role the Skyway conference plays in helping students follow career paths, providing intramural activities, and giving students a sense of purpose as writers.

Hosting duties for the Skyway Writers Competition and Festival rotate to each school in the conference. This year, it is Moraine Valley’s turn.

The festival, which is open to anyone from Moraine Valley whether they submitted to the contest or not, will take place in the F building on Nov. 9 from 12:30-6 p.m. The free event includes lunch, an open mic, writing workshops conducted by the published authors who are serving as contest judges, a dessert reception, a keynote speaker, and recognition of the Skyway award winners and participants. 

“It’s to celebrate the students’ success, to get them to interact with published authors and learn something from them,” Kelsay said. 

Communications professor Sheryl Bundy had the role of choosing the judges for the contest, who are published authors who live in the area. 

The poetry judge is Luis Tubens, a Chicago-born Puerto Rican poet and educator who has performed poetry across the United States. Mike Magnuson, author of several books including The Right Man for the Job, is the nonfiction judge. Novelist and podcast host Maggie Smith, author of Truth and Other Lies, is the fiction judge. And Jennifer Rumberger, a playwright based in Chicago and New York, is the drama/screenplay judge and the keynote speaker for the event.

The judges will present workshops on topics including “Poetic Movement,” “How to Tell Your Own True Story,” “Character Building: Crafting Your Story’s Heroes and Villains,” and “Using Genre Forms as Tools to Write New Plays.” 

As a creative writing instructor, Bundy is excited about the importance of Skyway.

”It’s so fun to be involved in something relating to that,” she said. “This festival allows us to celebrate the work of students here at the college.”

To attend the festival, RSVP by emailing campaigniac-arguem@morainevalley.edu or calling (708) 974-5637.

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Samaa Yousef and Ryan Anderson contributed to this report.