Joy Fisher accepts her non-fiction win in the 2011 Diversity Writing Awards
Second-year writing student Joy Fisher recently won first place in the non-fiction category of the 2011 Diversity Writing Awards for her piece, How Could Anyone Ever Tell You You Were Anything Less Than Beautiful?. Co-sponsored by the adviser on equity and diversity and UVic Libraries, this year’s Diversity Writing Awards attracted 33 entries from both undergrad and graduate students, covering a wide range of diversity-related themes (including ability, race, LGBTQ issues and privilege).
“I was thrilled with the diversity of responses and the calibre of entries. It was difficult to choose the winners,” says Grace Wong Sneddon, adviser on equity and diversity. “Writing gives students opportunities to share things that touch them, things that may be hard lessons. And it gives the community an avenue to hear, listen and learn. What a gift—from them to us and vice versa.”
In addition to Fisher’s non-fiction win, Laura How got the nod for fiction and Timothy Vander Wekken picked up the poetry prize. First-prize winners receive a cash prize of $200, second-prize winners earn $100 and third-prize winners receive a gift basket. The first-prize entries in each category will be published in the Multiplicity newsletter, and are also available here. The annual contest is supported by the Provost’s Steering Committee on Diversity and Equity, the Division of Student Affairs, the vice-president academic, UVic Libraries, the Office of Equity and Human Rights, the Faculty of Graduate Studies and the Malahat Review, with in-kind donations from the UVic Bookstore and Athletics and Recreational Services.
Joy Fisher is a foreign student from the United States, her main interests are creative non-fiction and drama, and she’s very happy to be living in a country where gay people can marry and where there is universal health care.
To view creative writing student Joy Fisher’s reading of her winning non-fiction entry, How Could I Ever Tell You You Were Anything Less Than Beautiful?, click here.