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Modifying Slippery Rock University’s English: Creative Writing Major
(Each year RockScissorsPaper publishes the winners of the James Strickland Award for Writing. Named after an honored colleague and SRU Professor Emeritus, these award-winning essays have been submitted by SRU English faculty and winners have been determined by SRU English Department Faculty, the College of Liberal Arts, and Professor Strickland himself. The following essay earned third place and a scholarship for the 2020-2021 academic year. Professor Strickland noted the following in selecting this essay as our third-place winner: “Byrne began with an opening that challenges the reader: if writers learn to write by writing and by writing a significant number of words every day, why would the university ask Creative Writing…
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Does Texting Really Affect Writing?
(Each year RockScissorsPaper publishes the winners of the James Strickland Award for Writing. Named after an honored colleague and SRU Professor Emeritus, these award-winning essays have been submitted by SRU English faculty and winners have been determined by SRU English Department Faculty, the College of Liberal Arts, and Professor Strickland himself. The following essay was the second-place winner for the 2020-2021 academic year. Professor Strickland noted the following in selecting this essay as our runner-up: “His title was meant to draw in readers because his argument is really whether new technology, especially that connected to smartphones, changes how writers write. Rogan used evidence from educators, bloggers, journalists, and researchers to look…
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Native American Voter Suppression
By Victoria Lydon (Each year RockScissorsPaper publishes the winners of the James Strickland Award for Writing. Named after an honored colleague and SRU Professor Emeritus, these award-winning essays have been submitted by SRU English faculty and winners have been determined by SRU English Department Faculty, the College of Liberal Arts, and Professor Strickland himself. The following essay was the winner for the 2020-2021 academic year. Professor Strickland noted the following in selecting this essay as our winner: “The essay began with a challenging thought–what if our voting rights were endangered by the very people elected to protect our rights, and then proceeded to explain the different laws and conditions that…
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lexapro
By Amy Myers my mind was once so loud. knocking on my skull; tyranny, invisible to all, to me, never able to quiet down. my mind was once so loud. lit by merely one, dark cloud. reaching out to the eye of the storm, they responded with the thought that my cerebral fight is out of the norm and assigned me my mask to be bought. i waited in line with all the rest to become numbed into a trance and absolve the knot in my chest with one orange bottle that i glanced. each day i swallow a synthetic seed that slides down my throat dissolving…
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natural roots
By Amy Myers thoughtless days pound in my head, but the absence of thinking prevents my lying in bed. i grow…yet in a backwards motion, like an arrogant tsunami pulling in all sides of the aggressive ocean. my brunette hair creeps in from my roots, reminding me of my overwhelming mind that my bleached hair tried to mute. my bangs fall heavy by the sides of my ears, soon will they reach my chin; something they haven’t done in years. effortless growth with heavy intention, perfectly crafted bleached and toned deception.
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no more apples
By Amy Myers a couplet a day keeps the depression at bay… in the time that i have here i’ve spent it in fear fleeting days simply wash away within the blue lights of a camera, so bright education may continue but my mind stays behind you i am not learning; rather, i am yearning for a time that i can say that i would love to stay
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the two x’s
By Amy Myers sunny days tend to be worse than others, for the inner monologue is so..so loud. i am never enough…not in your eyes, but mine burn in each reflective surface. i hate to see it, but i have to look. my weeping circles gaze back at me, begging to be loved by their owner. i’m so hostile….but only to myself. as if i’m experiencing stockholm syndrome within my own body. i don’t wish to leave, but i am so unkind to my reflection. comparison shadows me, like an altered version of myself. i walk, and it’s there. i run, and it’s there. i think, and it’s there. like…
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The Diner
By Melina Bowser The ceramic mug sits heavy in dainty hands— steam warming her face. Perfect circles stained the boomerang laminate countertop again. She sits quietly, taking long breaths between sips, thinking of a friend. Pulling out a book, she scrawls cursive words onto a page of ardor. Tears blur the pen ink knowing she will never read these words meant for her.
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Little Bads
By Jacob Hetrick Every good piggy knew the story by rote— how the wicked wolf had grabbed the first piggy by the throat and with a snap and a rip, and oh, a gush of blood! extinguished the little pig’s soul before it licked its lips and ate him whole. The second pig was not such easy fare for in his state, it was legal for pigs to keep arms to bear— to polish and preen and keep them seen and at every piggy’s hips, there was a cold metal sheen. So, when the big bad wolf came a-knocking, the second little piggy got his gun a-cocking, and with a…
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Empty
By Andrew Jones Food pantry struggles to restock. I can’t word that any worse. Let’s talk about politics; police violence, racial inequality, taxes, marriage rights, we can debate for days, but food pantries? How can something so pure come to rummaging the local paper to fill itself, like an empty stomach trudging below the railroad bridge, tattered sign dragging against a harsh November wind, each door they pass closed in this small town, each rifle loaded, each belly gorging on the daily news, new tax reform, new police training, same old empty food pantry.
