Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Write on the Money Literary Journal, a collection of the winners and finalists of Mid-State Technical College’s annual student writing contest, cosponsored by the School of General Education and Learning Resources and the Student Leadership Board.

Joan Didion, in her renowned essay collection The White Album, wrote, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live. ” Didion believed humankind’s ability to create stories out of the unexpected occurrences of life allows us to make sense of the world. This journal contains the stories of a sampling of students from Mid-State Technical College. These essays and research papers, true to Didion’s claim, teach us important life lessons. They teach us about surviving the loss of a loved one, about the importance of preserving wilderness, about the challenges and triumphs of pursing education as a non-traditional student, about the thrill of hunting big game in Africa, about perseverance—whether it’s preparing for a life-or-death situation in the military or training for a marathon. They include researched arguments about the private prison system, reforming justice, stem cell research, the safety of the Moderna vaccine, deer baiting, dress codes, and space exploration. These are the words of our friends and neighbors, shared with skill and bravery, and reading them encourages us to pursue our own goals and meet our own challenges, while also strengthening the bonds of our community. We thank our 2022 contest judges, Matt Cashion and Jeff Snowbarger, who selected our winners and runners-up. Matt Cashion is a professor of Creative Writing at UW-La Crosse. The author of three books, his novel Our Thirteenth Divorce won the 2017 Edna Ferber Book Prize, and his story collection, Last Words of the Holy Ghost, won the 2015 Katherine Anne Porter Prize. Other work has appeared in The Sun, Willow Springs, Grist: A Journal for Writers, Carolina Quarterly, Cutleaf, Moon City Review, Passages North, storySouth, The Writer’s Chronicle, and elsewhere. Jeff Snowbarger is an Associate Professor at UW-Stevens Point, where he teaches advanced fiction, intro to creative writing, and freshman and sophomore English. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where he received the Truman Capote Fellowship and served as a distinguished Post-Grad Teaching Fellow. Jeff was featured in Tin House as their New Voice in Fiction, and Best American Short Stories 2010 declared his story “Bitter Fruit” one of the year’s notable publications. He has recently published in Slate Magazine.

Cashion had this to say about “September 5, 2018” written by Chelsie Pickel, EMTParamedic student, which he selected as the winning essay in the personal essay category: “This essay reveals an author with a courageous spirit who, with unflinching honesty and generously-detailed images, openly discloses and confronts the very personal anguish that comes from the unexpected death of a sister. I admire the ways this writer crafts such a significant story by expertly maintaining a simultaneous sense of both patience and urgency.”

Cashion selected Paige Opelt’s essay “The Power that Predetermines Events” as the honorable mention and praised the essay with these words:

“I admire the rhetorical questions this writer poses while bravely documenting the final days of a father’s death from cancer. This story provides a wide-eyed witness to unfathomable loss, and grows, ultimately, into a poignant portrait of lasting love.” In the research paper category, Jeff Snowbarger selected accounting student Mikhaila Walker’s piece, “Incarceration: The Life Sentence,” as the winner, writing:

“This essay explores an interesting and complex issue, namely, the dangers forprofit prisons pose to society. The evidence is compelling, and the reader gains a clear sense of the way greed compels us to lock more and more wrongdoers away rather than investing in their rehabilitation. The examples are specific and human and, ultimately, persuasive.” Snowbarger awarded honorable mention to industrial automation and controls student Travis J. Maciejewski’s piece, “Reforming Justice,” commenting:

This essay also tackles an important topic, the inconsistencies found in judicial sentencing and police protocols. Strong, credible sources build the backbone of a coherent, thoughtful, and well-structured argument. We thank all students who entered the writing contest. It takes courage to put pen to paper and share your ideas with the world. We also thank the Mid-State Educational Development Center for the mini-grant which made possible the publication of this journal. On the pages that follow, please enjoy the winners and finalists of the 2022 Write on the Money Contest who agreed to the publication of their essays.

- Jill Quinn, Desiah Melby, Kelly Steidinger, & Megan Sokolowski, Mid-State Technical College Communication Instructors