2024 PST COLLEGIATE POETRY CONTEST WINNERS
1st Place: “Still” by by Tate Haugen, Tusculum, Greeneville
2nd Place: “East TN Autumn” by Kelsey Ann Guy, East Tennessee State University (ETSU), Johnson City
3rd Place: “Thistle’s Crime” by Kiersten Paxton, Tusculum, Greeneville
Honorable Mentions
“Citico” by Major Joshua Frerich II , Tennessee Wesleyan University, Athens
“Chipped Front Tooth” by Erika Perez Cortazar, ETSU, Johnson City
ABOUT THE POETS
Tate Haugen is a Wisconsin born writer who moved to Appalachia for college. His free time is spent exploring nature and what it means to be a hunter. He is an avid outdoorsman which his writing shows.
Kelsey Ann Guy is a junior at East Tennessee State University studying Media & Communications with minors in Creative Writing, Fine & Performing Arts, and French. She is a scholar of the Honors College at ETSU for poetry. She hopes to pursue a career in public relations and continue creative writing after graduation.
Kiersten Paxton was born and raised in Bristol, TN and is currently an English major at Tusculum University. She’s worked as the Assistant Fiction Editor for the international journal The Tusculum Review. Her poem “Take Longer” was published in Tennessee Voices Anthology, 2022-2023. In 2023, she won the Curtis Owens Literary awards for Fiction, Nonfiction, and Drama. She enjoys music, books, and experimenting with different writing styles and genres. She’d like to become a full-time writer after her graduation.
ABOUT THE JUDGE
A poet, playwright, essayist, and editor, Linda Parsons is the poetry editor for Madville Publishing and the copy editor for Chapter 16, the literary website of Humanities Tennessee. She is published in such journals as The Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, Terrain, The Chattahoochee Review, Shenandoah, and many others. Her sixth collection is Valediction: Poems and Prose. Five of her plays have been produced by Flying Anvil Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee. She is an eighth-generation Tennessean.
July 1, 2025, Linda began a term as Knoxille, Tennessee's 5th Poet Laureate. Learn more and get her schedule here.
1st Place: “Still” by by Tate Haugen, Tusculum, Greeneville
2nd Place: “East TN Autumn” by Kelsey Ann Guy, East Tennessee State University (ETSU), Johnson City
3rd Place: “Thistle’s Crime” by Kiersten Paxton, Tusculum, Greeneville
Honorable Mentions
“Citico” by Major Joshua Frerich II , Tennessee Wesleyan University, Athens
“Chipped Front Tooth” by Erika Perez Cortazar, ETSU, Johnson City
ABOUT THE POETS
Tate Haugen is a Wisconsin born writer who moved to Appalachia for college. His free time is spent exploring nature and what it means to be a hunter. He is an avid outdoorsman which his writing shows.
Kelsey Ann Guy is a junior at East Tennessee State University studying Media & Communications with minors in Creative Writing, Fine & Performing Arts, and French. She is a scholar of the Honors College at ETSU for poetry. She hopes to pursue a career in public relations and continue creative writing after graduation.
Kiersten Paxton was born and raised in Bristol, TN and is currently an English major at Tusculum University. She’s worked as the Assistant Fiction Editor for the international journal The Tusculum Review. Her poem “Take Longer” was published in Tennessee Voices Anthology, 2022-2023. In 2023, she won the Curtis Owens Literary awards for Fiction, Nonfiction, and Drama. She enjoys music, books, and experimenting with different writing styles and genres. She’d like to become a full-time writer after her graduation.
ABOUT THE JUDGE
A poet, playwright, essayist, and editor, Linda Parsons is the poetry editor for Madville Publishing and the copy editor for Chapter 16, the literary website of Humanities Tennessee. She is published in such journals as The Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, Terrain, The Chattahoochee Review, Shenandoah, and many others. Her sixth collection is Valediction: Poems and Prose. Five of her plays have been produced by Flying Anvil Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee. She is an eighth-generation Tennessean.
July 1, 2025, Linda began a term as Knoxille, Tennessee's 5th Poet Laureate. Learn more and get her schedule here.