Awards and Honors of MFA Students in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts

Neil Aitken (current MFA student)

• Fellowship to Idyllwild Summer Poetry Program (2005)
• Prairie Poetry Friends' Prize (2004)
• Prairie Poetry Peer Award (2003 & 2004)

Sherry Brandon (2004 graduate)

• First Harry Lawton Award for Screenwriting (2005)

Elizabeth Chatterton (2005 graduate)

• U.C. system-wide Poet Laureate Award (2005)

Kevin Cramer (current MFA student)

• Play, "Searching for Mari," was nominated for best playwright and best production at the Pittsburgh New Works Festival (2002).
• Play "As far as Spokane," finalist, Reva Shiner full-length play contest (2004) Bloomington, Indiana.
• Play, "Beartooth," nominated for best production, Pittsburgh New Works Festival (2004).
• Also produced at Outlaws Underground Theatre, State College, PA (February 2005).
• Professional productions: "Boom," Outlaws Underground Theatre, State College, PA (March 2003) and as part of the Patriot Acts Festival at the Alliance Repertory Co., Burbank, CA (August 2004)

Alba Cruz-Hacker (current MFA student)

• Pushcart Prize Nomination (2003)

Carolina Gabriela Jauregui (current MFA student)

• 1st place winner, Denise L. Scott Memorial Poetry Contest, Loyola Marymount University (2001)

Rebecca O’Connor (current MFA student)

• Fellowship to the San Juan Writer's Workshops (2005)
• Albert and Elaine Borchard Fellowship to attend Tomales Bay Workshops for creative nonfiction (2005)

Victoria Smith Patterson (current MFA student)

• Nonfiction prize from Snake Nation Press (2005)

Stephen Sloane (current MFA student)

• Chancellor’s Performance Award in Creative Writing (2002-2003)

Kandie St.Germain (current MFA student)

• Author of Closet Drama, a full-length collection of poetry, Bear Star Press (2001)
• Poems published in over thirty literary magazines, including Arshile, The Sonora Review, Puerto del Sol, and Artful Dodge
• California State University Creative Writing Program Award for Poetry.
• Plays for youth, Dinner in Oz, A Midsummer Night’s Teen, After Ever Happily, and Paper Umbrellas published by Eldridge Plays and Musicals.

Valerie Stulman (current MFA student)

• Semi-finalist, AFI Women's directing project (2000)
• Semi-finalist, Chesterfield Screenplay writing competition (2000)

Ky-Phong Tran (current MFA student)

• Fiction Scholarship to participate in the Voices of Our Nation Workshop--the only workshop in the nation for writers of color-- at the University of San Francisco (2005)
• Studied at VONA with Cristina Garcia, a National Book Award Finalist for her novel Dreaming in Cuban (2005)