It’s not uncommon to create stories in your head, imagining what you would have said in an argument, wishing a show had ended differently, or imagining yourself in another life. The power to create in some capacity is something that everyone shares. Writing is a passion many people have, even if those works never see the light of day. Writing can either take a long time to work through, or it can be as fast paced as writing down the thoughts as they come into your mind. There are a number of people who don’t publish their writings, but those that do might start off getting their works into a literary journal.
The Satori, for example, is a student-led literary journal on the Winona State University campus that shares student’s writings and art. This journal showcases, what the Satoi staff has called, the collection of student works and our work. While the Winona Prize Winners are featured by the Satori, the winners are actually chosen by outside judges. In this upcoming 55 edition the works of the three Winona Prize Winners will be showcased.
The winner for the Winona Prize in Fiction belongs to Maria Windley-Daoust for “Ways to Escape When We Have Nowhere to Go”. In this short story Windley-Daust writes about “a middle schooler who is living in a kind of struggling neighborhood and is trying to deal with her friends’ problems and learning how to process that.” They shared that this story was born out of a sentence that popped into their head, and it simply built up from there. It was somewhat founded in their own life experiences in middle school dealing with the problems of others. Windley-Daoust shares that this story was “kind of a love letter to like all these people that I knew in middle school.” Though this isn’t the only story they’ve written. Windley-Daoust has written plenty of other short stories that they’d one day like to submit. Despite this writing experience, they expressed that when they won they were freaking out because, “I was trying to keep my expectations really low.” This sentiment is something that the other winners have also expressed.
Kaylee Nickisch, who won the Winona Prize in poetry for her work “The She-Wolf Who Mothered Rome was a Woman” has said that while they have wanted to submit to the Winona Prize since last year that she, “felt kind of like maybe someone else kind of deserves it.” However, judges thought otherwise about her work about the Roman Mythology inspired piece about Romulus and Remus, and the Wolf that raised them. In Nickisch’s own words, “It’s like focusing on the woman who raised Rome.” Nickisch expresses that they wrote the piece for fun but that it was meaningful for them to put what they were thinking on to paper, something they wish to continue to do as they move throughout life.
“Filling in the Blanks,” is the work by Draconian Onyx that won the Winona Prize for creative nonfiction. They have also previously printed and sold their own books with their illustrations, something that they hope to continue to do. Their winning nonfiction story revolves around Dungeons & Dragons and explains it as well as their own experience finding themselves within this fantasy world. They express that despite their initial negative experience with it that they grew to love it, and it grew into “a place where I could define myself as a character sheet was a way to define my personhood, give myself autonomy.” Helping people express themselves is something that Onyx cares deeply about, sharing that one of their previous works centered around men’s mental health. Expressing that in literature is a step towards change. Upon finding out he won, Onyx shared that he “didn’t really believe it, just because I’m a technical writer.” Despite that, the piece ended up winning.
All of these winners prove that you should take chances. For the writers among the student population the deadline for the next issue of the Satori is February 17th. To put the Satori staffs’ words to good use, “every graduating class has a very different Satori.” So if you have something you’ve been sitting on or even something you’ve been wanting to write, take your chance. Like these winners, you never know when the work you think is subpar is going to shine brightly.
