ISSUED: 13 November 2018
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — A poem titled “Trillium” written by Tracy Seffers, Shepherd University’s registrar, is the 2018 HeartWood Broadside Series winner.
HeartWood Literary Magazine and West Virginia Wesleyan’s M.F.A. program sponsor the contest and accepted submissions of 200 words or less between April 1-June 1. The winner receives a $500 cash prize and 25 copies of a limited-edition letterpress broadside.
“It’s exciting and a deep honor to have my poem selected for the annual HeartWood broadside contest,” Seffers said.
“The poem grew out of an annual Shenandoah River clean-up that my family and I support, along with the local kayaking community and Team River Runner (TRR),” said Seffers, who serves as coordinator of Shepherd’s TRR chapter. “My assigned section of the road, to which I returned year after year, often left me angry at the casual carelessness of picnickers who, I imagined, would come to the river and then leave their considerable trash behind. Last spring, the nature of the items I picked up had changed in ways that grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go, then pricked my imagination, and then broke my heart. This poem was the result.”
Seffers said she especially likes the original artwork on the poster, which was inspired by the poem and designed by Emily and Betsy Sokolowsky of Base Camp Printing, Letterpress, and Design in Charleston.
Seffers’ poetry has been featured in reading events through the Jefferson County West Virginia Arts Council and in West Virginia Writers podcasts, published in regional literary journals such as “Bluestone Review,” “Backbone Mountain Review,” “Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel Literary Journal,” and “Anthology of Appalachian Writers,” and in online journals including “Still: The Journal” and “Assisi: an Online Journal of Arts and Letters.”
Seffers’ poem is posted online at: www.heartwoodlitmag.com/heartwood-broadside-series-2018-winner.
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