At the Tennessee Mountain Writers’ 31st annual conference in Oak Ridge over the weekend, several area writers came up winners in various categories.

Separate categories gave student and adult writers an opportunity to shine.

In the student poetry category, winners were Emma Haines of Oak Ridge High School and Halle Brown of Farragut High School, tied for third place for “Las Vegas Grim” and “Tight Grip,” respectively. Second place went to Grace Bass of Farragut High School for “Forgotten Performance”; and Seth Boullie of Oak Ridge High School won first place for his poem, “The Pumpkin with the One Carved Eye.”

The student prose winners were Meghan Owens of Powell High School, honorable mention for “Lucius”; Anna Summerville of Farragut High School, third place for “A Power Consumed by Darkness”; Katie Orillion of Knoxville Catholic High School for “To Slay a Dragon”; and first place went to Grace Bass of Farragut High School for her entry, “The Opposite of an Apocalypse.”

In the adult category, for the Patricia Boatner Fiction Award, winners were:

• 3^rd Place – Reid Sexton of Knoxville, “The Singin’ Bone”
• 2^nd Place – Daniel Reiss of Louisville, Tennessee, “What Esther Lost in Tennessee, 1933”
• 1^st Place – DeAnna Stephens of Crossville, “The Prodigals”

In a new category for 2019, the Humor Award winners included:

• 3^rd Place – Jennie Ivey of Cookeville, “Blind Date: The Poet”
• 2^nd Place – Natalie Kimbell of Graysville, Tennessee, “The Wedding Dress” (novel excerpt)
• 1^st Place – Chrissie Anderson Peters of Bristol, Tennessee, “Buddy.” This piece also won the Sue Ellen Hudson Award for General Excellence.

The Joy Margrave Nonfiction Award winners were:

• 3^rd Place – Judy Lee Green of Murfreesboro, “Memories of Ten Cent Burgers”
• 2^nd Place – Daniel Scaperoth of Lenoir City, “This is How You Hold a Shovel”
• 1^st Place – Chrissie Anderson Peters of Bristol, Tennessee, “Elkmont Fireflies”

The adult Poetry Award winners were

• 3^rd Place – Ann Thornfield Long of Norris, Tennessee, “Ode to Mary Oliver”
• 2^nd Place – Phyllis Price of Blacksburg, Virginia, “Kitt Peak Observatory”
• 1^st Place – Phyllis Price of Blacksburg, Virginia, “Five Ways to Go”

And in the Writing for Young People Award competition, winners were:

• 3^rd Place – Daniel Leonard of Oak Ridge, “Dahlia’s Dream”
• 2^nd Place – Dee Lynk of Crossville, “Chapter 7 – the B.I.T. Institute”
• 1^st Place – Vicki J. Cypcar of Sparta, “For Tucker’s Sake”