WKU News

The WKU English Department will celebrate the 10 finalists of the 29th annual Mary Ellen and Jim Wayne Miller Celebration of Writing on October 15 at 6:00 pm at the Western Kentucky University Alumni Center. The evening will begin with a cocktail reception followed by announcement of the contest winners and a reading by writer Tammy Oberhausen.

Oberhausen is a Kentucky-born writer and fellow Hilltopper, earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Western Kentucky, and then her MFA from Spalding University. Her debut novel, The Evolution of the Gospelettes, was edited by Silas House and published in 2024 by The University Press of Kentucky. She states that while working as a book editor and teacher and raising two daughters, she kept coming back to a story about a family of gospel singers that wouldn’t let her go. After three decades of developing her craft and writing and rewriting that story, the Gospelettes finally made their debut. The book went on to be named a Foreword Reviews INDIES Book of the Year.

The 10 undergraduate finalists were chosen by a panel of WKU English professors. The finalists will participate in a workshop with Obershausen. The finalists, in alphabetical order, are:

1. Alli Albarez
2. Diego Alcaraz-Monje
3. Andrew Dover
4. Carly Fawcett
5. Selma Grahic
6. Avery Hunt
7. Saoirse May
8. Shayla Reynolds
9. Lily Supinski
10. Chesney Wright

If you would like to know more about the events happening in the WKU English department, please reference the WKU English Department website and our Calendar of Events. Good luck to all the finalists and we hope to see you there.