Editor’s note: This is the space where I usually introduce our new Colorado Voices panel, winners of a contest we held in February. But this year, one of our new writers offered to undertake the task, and we think she sums up what we’re trying to do with this program in an exceptional way.
Thanks to all who participated in this 11th annual competition. We hope you try again next year!
Watch for the 16 new Voices listed below on our op-ed pages throughout the year; we think they will each earn your admiration.
— Barbara Ellis, Colorado Voices coordinator
By Megan Nix
When I was in high school English, we had an exercise called “word of the day.” We learned the origins of the word, then we drew it, however awfully we could, used it in context, discussed its current connotations, and offered where each of us may have heard it used.
We were learning that history is embedded in everything.
I thought “voice” should be today’s word of the day. The complicated contraption that is the human voice serves as the manager of tone; emotions emanate in a series of peaks and valleys. A question rides high at the end of the sentence. An utterance bumps over the tracks. A song undoes itself like a river from wet lips.
My favorite voice was my grandma’s; she would tilt back her head and croon songs like “Moon River” and “Tootsie” as we sat on her bed scooping cantaloupe into ping pong-sized balls for breakfast. She was never afraid to sing and never announced when her voice would ring out; it would just fill the room like water.
I loved the low pendulum of her voice swinging between sadness and ease and somewhere far away. She sang about trains and dancing. It wasn’t the words, it was the voice I believed. It was a door, it was an embrace. I went in.
Writers’ voices have always been the reason I read: to feel around the edges of words, to hear a stronger symphony than a life without literature would allow.
Anais Nin wrote that “the role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” Some of the other Colorado Voices this year are an abstract expressionist painter, a man who lives in a town of 700, a former journalist, a teacher, and a newly arrived Coloradan. I am waiting to hold their histories, to read what I’ll never write, and to take their voices’ leads.
Megan Nix (nix.megan@gmail.com) is an editor at DiningOut magazine and a student at the University of Alaska.
Here is the 2009-10 class of Colorado Voices:
BEN CAPE, Denver
Cape is a technical writer and a former journalist. One of his column entries, “Sitting on a waffle, in judgment of all, at Cherry Creek,” was a warm look at peer pressure and high fashion — for a 3-year-old. “A clear, strong voice,” one judge said.
BRIDGET CASSIDY, Loveland
Cassidy is finishing her master’s degree in public communication and technology from CSU in Fort Collins. “My mom tells me that when I was born,” she wrote in her cover letter, “I came out talking.” A judge’s comment: “Witty and smooth.”
SUZANNE HANDLER, Greenwood Village
Handler is a former Denver classroom teacher and retired mental health educator who has lived in Colorado since 1960 and is a breast cancer survivor — not once but twice. “A great story-teller with strong insight,” one judge said.
ALLAN HARRIS, Castle Rock
Harris is a finance manager and a self-published novelist six times over. “Funny and engaging,” a judge said, citing his entry on developing new “road signs” to signal bad drivers (and the obvious one isn’t among them).
JENNIFER E. MABRY, Boulder
Mabry is a former newspaper reporter who now works in marketing. She says she entered the contest because she seldom sees herself in the pages of The Post. One judge said Mabry is a “good writer with a definitive point of view.”
GORDON MacKINNEY, Bellvue
MacKinney is a father of five children, ages 2 to 14, and co-owner of a marketing communications agency. He’s a “community columnist” for the Fort Collins Coloradoan and isn’t afraid of expressing critical opinions.
MICHAEL MAZENKO, Greenwood Village
Mazenko is a Cherry Creek High School English teacher who regularly uses commentary in his classroom. In one entry, Mazenko chastises Oprah for not taking his advice on her book club selections — and turns it into an appeal for literacy. One judge called Mazenko’s writing “sophisticated.”
MARCIE MORIN, Denver
Morin recently found herself unemployed, but calls it “weirdly liberating.” “Losing your job doesn’t mean you’ve lost your identity — or your sense of humor,” she said in her cover letter. “I love the voice,” a judge said. “She captures the heart.”
MEGAN NIX, Denver
Nix is an editor at DiningOut Magazine and a student at the University of Alaska. She spent seven years as a student and teacher in New Orleans. “Choose me,” she wrote in her cover letter. One judge said, “After reading her essays, I did just that.”
ALEX RICE, Del Norte
Rice is a sophomore majoring in English at Adams State College in Alamosa and writes for three San Luis Valley newspapers. “An entertaining, clever writer,” a judge said. Apparently the Colorado Press Association agreed, applauding his humor columns.
TOM ROBERTS, Denver
Roberts is a junior at Arapahoe High School and calls himself a “full-time smart aleck.” Our judges called his work “thought-provoking and engaging,” with a powerful voice for one so young. “Teenagers are not a mindless unit of clones,” he wrote.
KIA RUIZ, Boulder
Ruiz is a newcomer to Colorado. Her writing offers a fresh view of the state. “I know an older gentleman who picks raspberries on his property and with a little prodding will pull a bush out of the ground to sell to you for a couple of dollars.” Lovely.
JANET SHERIDAN, Craig
Sheridan, a retired public school educator, bragged that she once “won a local cowboy poetry contest against five other entries, then blew her $20 prize money at Mather’s Bar.” One of our judges summed up her writing with one word: “Wow.”
EMILY BRENDLER SHOFF, Telluride
Shoff writes a weekly column on mountain living, family, politics and travel for the Telluride Daily Planet. Our judges liked her warm, conversational style and her ability to put us right in downtown Telluride, the snow falling on our eyelashes.
CRAIG MARSHALL SMITH, Highlands Ranch
Smith is an unrepentant curmudgeon (and abstract painter) whose writing reeks of irreverence and sensitivity. He described himself as “David Letterman’s illegitimate brother” who was “kicked out of Up With People” because he wasn’t.
DAVID STEINER, Allenspark
Steiner is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and retired professor of theater and public speaking. He is a longtime columnist for the Allenspark WIND, which caters to the 700 residents of the mountain town. His is a poignant look at life in a small community.
