Introducing the 2016 Hal Prize Judges

Hal Grutzmacher. Photo by Bill Brophy.

The Peninsula Pulse proudly introduces the judges for the 2016 Hal Prize, offering publication in our annual Literary Issue, cash awards and other prizes, a week stay at Write On, Door County, and a class at Peninsula School of Art.

Poetry Judge

Oliver de la Paz

Oliver de la Paz is the author of four collections of poetry, Names Above Houses, Furious Lullaby (SIU Press 2001, 2007), and Requiem for the Orchard (U. of Akron Press 2010), winner of the Akron Prize for poetry chosen by Martìn Espada, and Post Subject: A Fable (U. of Akron Press 2014). He is the co-editor with Stacey Lynn Brown of A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry (U. of Akron Press 2012). He co-chairs the advisory board of Kundiman, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of Asian American Poetry and serves on the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Board. A recipient of a NYFA Fellowship Award and a GAP Grant from Artist Trust, his work has appeared in journals like Virginia Quarterly Review, North American Review, Tin House, Chattahoochee Review, and in anthologies such as Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation. He teaches in the MFA program at Western Washington University and in the Low Residency Rainier Writing Workshops at Pacific Lutheran University.

Photography Judge

Wing Young Huie

For more than 30 years, celebrated photographer Wing Young Huie has captured the complex cultural realities of American society. His work has been shown in international museums – more than half a million people have viewed his traveling exhibit in China – and in Minnesota storefront windows. His most well known works, Lake Street USA and the University Avenue Project, transformed Minneapolis and Saint Paul thoroughfares into six-mile photo galleries reflecting the everyday lives of thousands of their citizens.

His projects explore a myriad of social issues, including immigration, race, adoption, urban and rural life, dementia, faith, Lutheranism, gender, homelessness, and youth culture. Though much of his work centers on his homeland of Minnesota, his current series Chinese-ness explores experiences of identity in the United States and the Motherland of China, employing documentary and conceptual conceits, and occasionally a chalkboard.

Wing uses photography as a societal mirror and window, seeking to reveal not only what is hidden, but also what is plainly visible and seldom noticed, providing a collective portrait of the “them” who are really “us.” As an extension of his public art installations that create informal communal spaces, in spring 2011 Wing opened The Third Place Gallery. Housed in a building that previously sat empty for 47 years, Wing has turned the space into an urban living room for guest artists, social conversation, karaoke, and ping pong.

Nonfiction Judge

Jerry Apps

Jerry Apps, born and raised on a Wisconsin farm, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the award-winning author of more than 35 books, many of them on rural history and country life.

He is a former publications editor for UW-Extension, an acquisitions editor for the McGraw-Hill Book Company, and editor of a national professional journal.

Jerry has won awards for his writing from the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Library Association, American Library Association, Foreword Magazine, Midwest Independent Publishers Association, Robert E. Gard Foundation, The Wisconsin Council for Writers, Upper Midwest Booksellers, and Barnes and Noble Bookstores, among others. In 2010 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Science, was named a Fellow by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences Arts and Letters in 2012, and was named to the Wisconsin 4-H Hall of Fame in 2014.

Fiction Judge

Nicole Helget

Nicole Helget is the author of The Summer of Ordinary Ways, The Turtle Catcher, Stillwater, Horse Camp (co-authored), Wonder at the Edge of the World, and the forthcoming Fern’s Grove. She lives on a farm in southern Minnesota with her family.

The Hal Prize is presented in collaboration with Write On, Door County, a nonprofit organization promoting writing and reading to year-round and seasonal residents in the county.

The deadline for entry is Sunday, May 1, 2016. All submissions will be accepted digitally. For complete submission guidelines and to submit your creative work, visit TheHalPrize.com.