Past Aspiring Writers Award Winners

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  2010 GOG Aspiring Writer Winner: Leslie C. Youngblood
  No stranger to writing Leslie C. Youngblood our 2010 Aspiring Writer winner has had many jobs where writing was at the core of her responsibilities. Even though her jobs required her to write aricles and business coorespondence her passion was fiction both reading and writing it. Currently, an associate professor of creative writing at Lincoln University in Jeffferson City, Missouri Youngblood continues to put pen to paper and it was her entry At Forty that won over our judges. Here is what she had to say about the inspiration behind this compelling story:
  
  "At Forty was born from my trip to Ghana, but it's totally fiction. Many people have never seen Ghana or other parts of Africa outside of what appears on late night television with missionary work at its core. In At Forty, I purposely transported my character to Ghana as soon as possible so that people so that people can see her in that setting. Shes comfortable with her life but at forty years of age, she's at the point where she decides to take action and follow her heart. Her heart leads her to Ghana."
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  2009 GOG Aspiring Writer Winner: Bryne Christine Berry
  A high school senior, Bryne Christine Berry has the proud distinction of being the youngest winner ever of the GOG Aspiring Writer Award. Her intriguing excerpt, written at such a young age, is an indication Berry is cut out for a prodigious future. She is inspired by the poetic influences of Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes and desires to craft comedic material while also writing for local magazines and periodicals.
  
  
  Berry received the 2009 GOG Unpublished Writer Award for her untitled short story about a Black vampire. Here she shares her inspiration for the story:
  
  "My novel excerpt is less of a vampire story but more of an answer to a question that arose while watching the movie Twilight which featured a Black vampire. How does he feel knowing that although he has all the strength and speed in the world, that throughout history he has been despised not just because he is a vampire but because he has black skin? My story still without a title, follows, Kizzy, a Black vampire who is a survivor of the Rosewood, Florida massacre and who lives with White vampires, in the late 1960's."
• 2008 GOG Aspiring Writer Winner: Ashley Williams
  Ashley was born in Baltimore, Maryland and is currently matriculating at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where she majors in African Studies. Ashley is a recipient of the 2007 and 2006 Margaret Walker Prize for fiction, a Vermont Studio Center Fellow and an alumna of the Hurston Wright Writer’s Workshop. She has been accepted to literary workshops at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the North Country Institute for Writers of Color - Valcour Retreat. Her fiction has been published in Drum Voices Review and in journals at Cornell and Howard Universities. Her winning submission was Maya’s First Flight.
• 2007 GOG Aspiring Writer Winner: Robin Wilson
  “Writing is my life”, says Robin Wilson, married mother of two. Robin is a junior at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, Indiana, majoring in Cancer Research, but writing remains her one true passion. Her winning submission was Passing Through.
• 2006 GOG Aspiring Writer Winner: Alicia J. Chambers
• 2005 GOG Aspiring Writer Winner: Camille Acker (Jamaica)
  Camille Acker is an editorial assistant at John Wiley & Sons, a book-publishing house in New Jersey. She was born in Columbia, Maryland and raised in Washington, D.C. She graduated with honors from Howard University with a BA in English. She is inspired in part by her mother, a former book editor. Her winning submission was entitled Walking on Tiptoes.
• 2004 GOG Aspiring Writer Winner: Djuana Brockington (South Carolina)
  Djuana Brockington is a thirty-seven year single mother of a nine-year-old "diva in training." She has worked in the field of social services for fifteen years, but has an intense passion for reading and writing and has been a "closet" writer for most of her adult life. She received the Go On Girl 2004 Unpublished Writer Award for her novel excerpt "The Date." Ms. Brockington resides in North Charleston, South Carolina.
• 2003 GOG Aspiring Writer Winner: Jacinda Townsend (New York)
  Jacinda Townsend is a 2001 graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has been writing fiction for almost a decade and has been published in numerous literary magazines, including African Voices, The Maryland Review, Obsidian II, Passages North, Phoebe, and Xavier Review. Her work has been anthologized in the O. Henry Festival Stories 2000 and Telling Stories: Fiction by Kentucky Feminists. She was a Fulbright fellow in creative writing in Cote d'Ivoire (West Africa), the producer of an annual Black History Month feature called "The Darker Ink: Writing from the African Diaspora" and for three years, she founded a minority fiction workshop under the same name. She teaches fiction writing at New York City's Gotham Writers' Workshop and was a finalist for the 2002 Hurston-Wright Award. Ms. Townsend received the Go On Girl 2003 Unpublished Writer Award for her novel excerpt "Blofué".
• 2002 GOG Aspiring Writer Winner: Sue Williams (Indiana)
  Sue Williams was born on November 2, 1955. A native of Indianapolis, Indiana, she enjoys reading a diverse selection of literature. Her written work has been previously published in the Des Moines Register. She received the Go On Girl 2002 Unpublished Writer Award for her novel excerpt "Just Another Day."
• 2001 GOG Aspiring Writer Winner: Trina Gallop (Virginia)
  Trina Gallop was raised in rural North Carolina with childhood aspirations of writing. She successfully pursued a formal education from the University of Virginia and Cornell University, earning a BA and MS, respectively. Her greatest learning potential, however, commenced during her studies abroad in Nigeria. Ms. Gallop edits and writes technical documentation at an e-commerce company in Charlottesville, VA. She received the Go On Girl 2001 Unpublished Writer Award for "Elizabeth's Eyes," a novel excerpt from "Shades of Gray."
• 2000 GOG Aspiring Writer Winner: Tara Owens Baldridge (Chicago)
  Tara Owens Baldridge traveled to Chicago from Shreveport, Louisiana to study English Language & Literature, Dramatic Language & Literature and Literature and Practical Drama in the Humanities Program at the University of Chicago. A writer for more than fifteen years, she has written poetry, plays, and short stories and has also penned a screen adaptation of a novel. She is employed as a children's book buyer at 57th Street Books in Chicago, Illinois. She received the Go On Girl 2000 Unpublished Writer Award for her novel excerpt "When A Man Is Wrong."

Aspiring Writers Education Scholarship Winners

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  2010 GOG Literary Scholar Winner: Shavonne Ceruti
  New York native Shavonne Ceruti is a junior at Winston-Salem State University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where she is an English major who advocates for the empowerment of women. Ceruti is attracted to books with strong female characters. The Color Purple by Alice Walker and The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor are two of her favorite books. This is what she had to say about how these books/authors have inspired her:
  
  
  "I love them because they illustrate the strength and bond that women have. They show that even through the most dire of circumstances, Black women can overcome. We can find our own voices, identify our strengths and maintain our independence."
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  2009 GOG Literary Scholar Winner: Nicole Drew
  With a love of literature that is second only to her passion for the law, GOG's 2009 scholarship recipient Nicole Drew has definite plans to attend law school and ultimately combine her legal and creative talents to compose provocative literature. Drew, a student at North Carolina, Central University, marvels at the creative genius of Toni Morrison and enjoys the laugh appeal of her favorite contemporary author, Eric Jerome Dickey. Drew won for her essay on "The Power of the Written Word" which she states below has inspired her.
  
  "I discovered the work of Pamela Thomas-Graham a few years ago at a writers program and was very impressed with how Graham successfully pooled her creative endeavors with her savvy business acumen to author the Ivy League mystery series, and I realized that this was something that I may also want to do."
• 2007 GOG Literary Scholar Winner: Dachelle Chenault
  A resident of Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, Dachelle is a junior at Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia. She originally planned on attending law school, but last semester she changed her career path to pursue a PhD in African American Literature.
• 2006 GOG Literary Scholar Winner: Jamal Williams
• 2005 GOG Literary Scholar Winner: Michelle Burgess
• 2002 GOG Literary Scholar Winner: Carla Gerton (Indiana)
  Carla E. Gerton resides Indianapolis, Indiana and received a Bachelor of Arts from Indiana State University in 2002.
• 2001 GOG Literary Scholar Winner: Nicole Alexander (Virginia)
  Nicole Y. Alexander is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Hampton University in 2003.