The 2000 Denny C. Plattner Appalachian Heritage Awards

The 2000 Denny C. Plattner Appalachian Heritage Awards Kenneth and Elissa May Plattner established the Denny C. Plattner Awards in honor of their son Denny and his love for writers and writing. We at Appalachian Heritage greatly appreciate the generosity of the Plattner family, who make possible these awards for merit among our contributors, in memory of one who loved the written word and labored at the craft. Every year since 1993, we have been able to award the authors of the best poems, short stories, and essays or articles for their excellence in writing. First-place winners of the Denny C. Plattner Awards in each genre are awarded two hundred dollars. First, second and third-place winners are presented with personalized, solid cherry bookracks. Poetry (Judge Beck Finley edits the online magazine Twittering Machine and lives in Kansas City, Missouri) First Prize"Disputanta Grin" by David Alan Payne (Summer) Second Prize"To the Builders of My House" by Dan Leidig (Summer) Third Prize"Money for a Pepsi" by Walter Lane (Fall) Honorable Mentions "Vacancies for Belief" by Deborah Byrne (Spring) "Better Closing Lines" by Mary Ellen Miller (Winter) Short Fiction (Judge Jim Whorton teaches English at Northeast State Technical Community College in Mississippi and is an associate editor of the online version of Mississippi Review) First Prize"Gemini Sister" by Jeanne Bryner (Spring) Second Prize"Canning" by Silas D. House (Fall) Third Prize"House Plants" by Ralph Price (Fall) Honorable Mention"Confounded Life" by Tina Rae Collins (Fall) Non-Fiction Prose (Judge Diana Dawson Plattner is an award-winning freelance writer and full-time copy editor living in Athens, Georgia) First Prize"Studying Place Names: Some Assumptions and Problems" by Robert M. Rennick (Summer) Second Prize"Returning to Sustainability in Appalachia" by Bill Best (Winter) Third Prize"The Old Swimmin' Hole" by G.C Compton (Summer) Honorable Mentions "A Long Rest" by Catherine Morgan (Spring) "Fetchin' and Carryin'" by Dixie Thacker (Fall) "November 9, 1947" by Lester Pross (Fall) Some Poems Come Some poems come like rain, torrential: gales of rushing wind, brush fire, wild. Some poems come like creeks in spring, thrashing water birdsong gurgling loam. Some seem firm, cool, urgent fossils pressed into rock, fragment thoughts ferns. Then there is the dust a time to wait a seeing spell. I sit on the bank, still: the quiet smell of leaves, bedrock, mold. —Pia Seagrave ...