Two-time Minnesota State alum won Minnesota Monthly's 24th annual Tamarack Award.
Nick Healy, MSU English adjunct professor and children's publisher editor, said winning the Tamarack Award was a goal of his since the first time he submitted a story to the contest.
Healy came to MSU as a freshman in 1988. Majoring in mass communications, he worked at the Reporter for two years.
"I had a blast doing that," Healy said.
In 2002, after working at different small newspapers and spending six years in the state capitol writing about the legislature, Healy returned to MSU to complete a Masters of Fine Arts degree in creative writing.
"I had always wanted to write fiction, but didn't always have time," Healy said.
According to Healy, MSU is a good place for writers. As proof of his point, Healy points to a fact about the Tamarack Award:
Three of the last five winners hold a MFA from MSU.
Healy said the time he spent at MSU for his MFA was both the most fun and most work he had ever done.
"The whole day was spent either reading, writing or talking about writing," Healy said.
According to Healy, even with winning the Tamarack award, he is still learning about writing fiction. Healy said teaching English Composition helps with his learning process.
"Trying to help someone else write makes you look at writing in a new way," Healy said.
According to Healy, competition for the Tamarack Award is stiff. Each year the contest gets 200-some entries. Healy said the contest is open to any level of short fiction writers. The Tamarack Award has no entry fee, unlike other short fiction contests. The only restrictions are story length and the writer must reside in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin or the Dakotas.
Healy said the Tamarack Award is a well-known contest. It becomes even more important to writers because of Minnesota Monthly's large circulation. It helps that the magazine isn't a literary magazine, like most that hold short fiction contests.
"It exposes you to readers who don't normally pay attention to short fiction," Healy said.
According to Healy, fiction can help people understand history. Even when a story's events are completely fictionalized, the attitude and actions of the characters help readers to understand the real history. Healy said that Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" helped him to understand World War II.
Healy got the idea to write "Uncle Ed's Packard" over the winter. The winter weather combined with memories of learning about the "Armistice Day Blizzard" of 1940 in school to find fertile soil:
"I felt that event was ripe for a new story," Healy said.
Healy said that his submission this year was a last minute decision. He said he didn't know if he had a suitable story for the contest's June deadline. In the last few weeks before the deadline, Healy said he became serious about choosing a story.
He has enjoyed the people who have contacted him after "Uncle Ed's Packard" was published. Most, he said, wanted to share stories of the blizzard, which in part inspired the story.
"It feels really good to have a story win [the Tamarack Award,]" Healy said.
Heather Moeller is a Reporter staff writer
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