Articles tagged with: Naked Ptarmigan
RAW 2010 Short Story Winners
Radical Arts for Women is pleased to announce the winners of the 4th annual RAW short story contest.
“We received entries from Anchorage, Fairbanks, Soldotna and Ketchikan. We had science fiction and down-to-earth tales, stories about jail and about rural Alaska.”
“Next year we will change the name of the contest to the Nicole Blizzard Short Story Contest. Nicole Blizzard was a local lesbian writer and editor who passed away in December. She created, published and edited the local LGBT literary journal Naked Ptarmigan (which also publishes the winner of the RAW short story contest), and last year Nicole published her first collection of short stories. We are pleased to rename the contest in honor of her.”
The Winners for 2010
Grand prize and winner of $500 – “Mail Plane” by Emily Sousa
2nd place and winner of $300 – “Itch” by Mel Green
3rd place and winner of $100 – “The Remaking of Audrey Lang” by CN McLaughlin
Honorable mention – “219s” by Amy Whinston
Honorable mention – “Gone, Fishing” by Audrey Fearnside
The winners were announced during the annual women’s performance Celebration of Change. A scene from the grand prize story “Mail Plane” was read during Celebration, and the full story is now posted on RAW’s web site. Mel posted her 2nd place winning lesbian love story “Itch” on her blog Henkimaa.
Memorials for Nicole Blizzard, tonight & Jan 31
Nicole Blizzard of Anchorage passed away on Dec. 30, and a memorial service is being held tonight, Thursday Jan. 7, at 5:30 p.m. in Providence Hospital’s West Auditorium. Blizzard was an RN in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Providence.
The queer community is planning a second memorial later this month at Mad Myrna’s. Blizzard asked for a party instead of a funeral, so her friends are throwing a Birthday Party Celebration of Nicole’s Life at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday Jan. 31, which would have been her 52nd birthday.
In December, she was dealing with health problems and developed complications. Her close friends were with her when she passed away. They will spread her ashes in Cook Inlet this spring, as she requested.
Blizzard founded The Naked Ptarmigan, an LGBT literary journal for Alaska. She was a former editor of The NorthView, a former board member of Identity, and a co-host of RAW’s Celebration of Change.
She loved music, photography and writing, wrote online book and music reviews, and contributed to the web site TechnoDyke. A new book of her writings, Love and Other Mishaps: An Accidental Anthology, was published in early December, and autographed copies are available in the Local Interest section of Border’s Bookstore in Anchorage.
RAW is considering a last issue of The Naked Ptarmigan in honor of Nicole, and may set up a scholarship named for her. Details will be announced on March 27 at Celebration of Change.
Condolences to her friends and family. She was well-known and will be missed.
