Blakey wins poetry award

Ellen Sue Blakey, of Thermopolis, won 2nd place in Free-Verse Poetry for her poem “Braiding Rugs,” at the writing contest presentation at this year’s Wyoming Writers, Inc., conference, held June 5-7 at the Holiday Inn in Cheyenne. 

Judge Rick Kempa, of Rock Springs, author of two books of poems and editor of a third, had this to say about her work: “’Braiding Rugs’ is an intimate account of a grandmother “ripping the canniballed cloth” of her family’s “former glory”—clothing, one imagines, that has lain for decades in the cedar chest—an activity that becomes, through the poet’s skillful telling, a braid of the critical events of her long life: the wedding day, the brother lost to war, the drowned child.”

 For a complete list of this year’s Writing Contest winners go to http://www.wyowriters.org/ and click Conference Highlights on the black band.

Next year’s Wyoming Writers, Inc., conference will be held in Riverton, at the Wind River Hotel & Casino, June 3-5, 2016. Contest entry details should be available earlier that spring.