A collection of terrific writings and wildly creative visual art submissions delighted the judges of the annual Echoes and Images competition. Echoes and Images is the student literary and visual art magazine of Northeast State.
Winners were announced this week for the publication’s 2025-26 competition. Student submissions were made during the fall semester in the categories of Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry, and Visual Arts. Judges with expertise in each category selected award winners. Northeast State will host an awards ceremony recognizing the winners on April 10 at 5:30 p.m. in Wayne G. Basler Library on the Blountville campus. The ceremony includes a reading of authors’ works and a display of the artists.
In the Fiction category, Molly Hein won first place for The Empire of the Dead. Abigail Ruth Webb took second place for Emirs Thane: The Foolish Intellectual. James Whitson received third place with Behind the Bars. An honorable mention notice went to Joshua Eades for The Spark.
In the Non-fiction category, Makayla Leonard took first place for her work, Whiskers with Wings. Second place went to Jasmine Monroe for The Woman Across the Hall. Alexis Bramlette earned third place for A Sense of Belonging. Honorable Mention notices went to Emma Brooke Farmer (Uncle Kyle), James Crussell (Outweigh the Sin), and Kitty Michael (Germination).
For the Poetry category, Kitty Michael claimed first place for Urban Wolves and second place for The King and Rosie. Morgan Matney received the third-place award for her work 1883, Cemetery Cadaver Creek.
Honorable mention notices went to these contributing poets: Lydia Wilson for Pasta, Alec Crawford for Mother’s Son, and Tabitha Grace Saulsbury for Rot.
The following students were named finalists in the Poetry category by judges: Kitty Michael (Blacktop), Tabitha Grace Saulsbury (You Should Love Me and The Chapter), Abigail Ruth Webb (I See Vultures), Andrea Eum (Learning to Hold Hope), Makayla Leonard (Lonely Kitchen), Shanna Holt (Wired), Victoria Stasz (Tears of the River), Lydia Wilson (When We Were Young), and Morgan Matney (Walkabout Shopping)
In the Visual Art category, Jackson Moore earned first place with Self-Reflection, a work of digital photography. Second place went to Savannah Milhorn for The Monster in Us, a mixed media on paper. Tara Stroub received third place with Don’t Trust Still Water: My Self-Portrait, an acrylic painting on mixed media paper.
Honorable Mention recognition went to Angelina Hyden for Fragments of Joy, a work of digital photography and Ashley Lodge for Read All About It (Triptych), digital photography. Other art submissions noted for distinction by the judge were: Sammy Gibson for Apparition; Oz Michael for Undead; Keira Beaver for Your Power; Bethany Godsey for Buzzing with Life!; Blake Hawkins for Downtown Lights; Rachel Lucas for Spark of Color, and Kitty Michael for Still: Self-Portrait.
First-, second-, and third-place recipients in all categories will be published this spring in the upcoming edition of Echoes and Images. Other entries will be published in the edition as space permits. Thank you to all our entrants for their terrific work.
Good job everyone as a English major myself I know how hard this can be