Download photos online. Photo credit: Hatch Visuals/UNT Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference.

DENTON (UNT), Texas — Nine talented journalists and writers won top prizes at the University of North Texas 2018 Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. The event brings together storytellers who are dedicated to the art of narrative nonfiction.

Among the awards, the conference honors great literary journalism and creative nonfiction with its Book Manuscript, Reported Narrative and Personal Essay writing contests. The winners were announced July 21 at the conference’s Literary Lights Dinner, which featured outspoken “Shrill” author Lindy West.

In addition, all six winning Personal Essay and Reported Narrative entries and four runners up will be published in the 2019 iteration of Ten Spurs, a literary nonfiction journal published by the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism..

Book Manuscript

• First place: Tracie White from Aptos, Calif., won the $3,000 prize for her manuscript, “The Invisible Patient.” The story tells the tale of a young man stricken with “chronic fatigue syndrome” and his parents never-ending efforts to find a cure.
• Second place, sponsored by Joe Dealey Jr. of Dallas: Charlie Scudder from Dallas won the $2,000 prize for “Dallas: From the City of Hate to the Home of America’s Team.” This piece ties together the two narratives of a city trying to create a new Dallas and the rise of the Dallas Cowboys to one of the NFL's most renowned teams.
• Third place, sponsored by Joe Dealey Jr. of Dallas: Jim Dolan from Dallas won the $1,000 prize for "Notorious Hoodlum: A Son's Tale,” a memoir about loving a bad parent, the murder of a loved one, mind-altering grief and the seductive power of conspiracy theories.

Reported Narrative

• First place, sponsored by the Dallas Morning News: Jonathan Auping from Fort Worth, Texas, won the $3,000 prize for “Chasing Ghosts,” a story about the disappearance of three young girls from a Fort Worth mall more than four decades ago. The girls were never found, and Auping tells how one of their brothers never stopped looking for his sister. Auping is also a previous Ten Spurs award winner.
• Second place: Christine Heinrichs from Cambria, Calif., won the $2,000 prize for “Flight of the Condor,” a report on the ongoing struggles to save the legendary condors despite unique obstacles such as lead ammunition poisoning acquired from carcasses the vultures scavenge.
• Third place, sponsored by Joe Dealey Jr.: Matt Crossman from St. Peters, Mo., won the $1,000 prize for “Going Remote.” This piece tells the story of a family traveling to the most remote location in each of the U.S. states and why they decided to do so.

Personal Essay

• First place, sponsored by the Dallas Morning News: Daniel Garcia from Denton, Texas, won the $3,000 prize for “Endlessly,” a story that weaves together a student’s search for love, the possibility of alternative universes and the Greek myth of Icarus.
• Second place: Jaya Wagle from Fort Worth, Texas, won the $2,000 prize for “Marriage of a Different Kind,” an introspective narrative in which Wagle uses the lens of her Indian culture to share her courtship experience. Wagle is also a UNT graduate student in the Department of English.
• Anita Roastingear from Crownpoint, N.M., won the $1,000 prize for “ACE,” a story of her personal childhood memories – both good and bad – growing up as a Cherokee girl.

Runners Up

• Debbie Williams from Abilene, Texas, for "Dark Blots."
• Timothy Miller from Rockwall, Texas, for "Jukebox DNA.”
• George Newton from Benton, La., for "Night and Day.”
• Kim Horner from Richardson, Texas, for "Richard."