The Crossroads Irish-American Writing Contest
In 2011, Crossroads launched the first-ever Irish-American Writing Contest with the aim to support and develop Irish-American writing. We are interested in the varied and multiple ways in which one can be “Irish” in “America”. In this sense, to be Irish-American means that one can be fist or fifth generation, with or without a diversity of other ethnic/racial inheritances. To be Irish-American can mean that one hails from Boise, Brooklyn, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Halifax, Montserrat of Fairbanks, Alaska. In other words, we define Irish-American as inclusive of the Americas. And, we are interested in all of the possible ways that the Irish have impacted and shaped experience, identity, culture and society in each and every corner of the Americas.
Since its inception, Crossroads has awarded three winners of the Irish-American Writing Contest, listed below:
2010-2011 – Memoir
- First Place: Michael Carolan, “Perpetual Hunger”
- Honorable Mention: John Maloney, “An Irish-American Memoir of Seventy-Four Years A-Growin”
Judged by: Michael Patrick McDonald, an Irish-American activist against crime and violence and author of his memoir, All Souls: A Family Story From Southie.
2011-2012: Short Story
- First Place: Kathleen Donohoe, “You Were Forever”
Judged by: Catherine Brady, Academic Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of San Francisco, Jean McGarry, Professor in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, and Terence Winch, an Irish-American poet, writer and musician.
2012-2013: Poetry
- First Place:Mary Kay Rummell, “Ars Poetica” and “What Stone Knows”
Judged by: Eamonn Wall, the Smurfit-Stone Professor of Irish Studies and Professor of English at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and the director of the Irish Studies Program.