THE LORIN TARR GILL BIENNIAL WRITING COMPETITION for the year 2008

Lorin Tarr Gill, born in 1889, was a newspaper reporter, a fiction writer, and later an editor and article writer for Bishop Museum . She was an active member of the Honolulu Branch of NLAPW. After her death in 1979, her sons Lorin Tarr and Tom asked that donations to her memory be made to fund a contest "to stimulate, encourage, and/or reward excellence in creative writing, and in all fields of literary endeavor."

This fund, which became the Lorin Tarr Gill Writing Competition, is administered by the Honolulu Pen Women Branch and held in conjunction with the Biennial Writers' Conference.

In 2008 we had entries from Kaua'i, the Big Island , and O'ahu, as well as California and Pennsylvania . This year we were honored to have Lorin Tarr Gill's grandson, Gary Gill, and Gary 's daughter, also a Lorin Tarr Gill, present lei to the conference winners.

Winners: Lorin Tarr Gill Writing Competition 2008

Fiction

First Place : Paul Flentge for "Bombing Pearl Harbor "

Second Place : Kathleen J. Cassity for "Leaving Paradise "

Third Place : Susan Killeen for "Nothing More Than This"

Honorable Mention: Colleen Marie Murphy for "Somebody at Home"

Poetry

First Place : Jan McGrath for "Smoothers"

Second Place : Kathleen J. Cassity for "Chee Chee"

Third Place : Christine Le for "One God"

Honorable Mention: Dawn Fraser Kawahara for "Sheltering Mango"

Nonfiction

First Place : Kathleen J. Cassity for "Distances"

Second Place : Dawn Fraser Kawahara for "An Echo of Rodney Dangerfield: On Education and Respect"

Third Place : Michelle Cruz Skinner for "Translating"

Winning poems will be published in an upcoming edition of Honolulu Star Bulletin.

Previous contest info.