Judge: Sheri Reynolds is the author of five novels, including The Rapture of Canaan (an Oprah Book Club selection and #1 New York Times Bestseller). She teaches writing and literature at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, where she's an associate professor and the Ruth and Perry Morgan Chair of Southern Literature.

NONFICTION

Judge: Tom Horton was a reporter on the Chesapeake Bay for the Baltimore Sun (1977-2006), during which time he won numerous awards. Horton’s first book, Bay Country, a series of essays on the Chesapeake, won both the John Burroughs Medal for the country’s best natural history book of 1988 and a similar award from the Wildlife Society. Horton retired from the Sun and now makes his living as a freelance writer. He is currently working on two books for W.W. Norton, a collection of nature essays and a historical, social and ecological look at the chicken.

First Place: “An Aran Island Souvenir”

Kathleen L. Caroll
Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

Second Place: “Bombus Terrestris”

Mary Pauer
Bridgeville, Delaware

Third Place: “Unhappy Camper”

Mihku Paul Anderson
Portland, Maine

POETRY

Judge Sue Ellen Thompson is the author of four books, most recently The Leaving: New & Selected Poems (Autumn House, 2001) and The Golden Hour (Autumn House, 2006), both of which were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the editor of The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry (2005), a selection from the work of 94 American poets that is used in college classrooms across the country.

First Place: “Lessons of the Oceans”

Michael Blaine
Seaford, Delaware

Second Place: “Acadia”

Mihku Paul Anderson
Portland, Maine

Third Place: “Theories of Starlight”

Gail Comorat
Lewes, Delaware

Winners, 2009 Writing Contest

FICTION

First Place: “The Train Show”

Second Place “A Captive Shell”

Third Place: “Greetings From Rehoboth”