The Story State Contest will accept submissions for the 2025 contest in Fall 2024
2024 Winners Announced
Kamree Howard is the 2024 Master Storyteller! Congratulations Kamree
- 1st place - “Magnolia” by Kamree Howard from Ellisville, MS (Kamree was also selected as the 2024 Master Storyteller; she is receiving $100 for first place in written stories and $150 for being selected Master Storyteller)
- Howard describes her story as “a non-fiction narrative piece about one of the many effects from my parents' divorce.”
Oral Stories Category
-
-
1st place - “Crawfish” by Raylen Ladner from Diamondhead, MS (Raylen is receiving $100 for first place.)
- A clip from a story she covered about the crawfish industry in relation to climate change. Her submitted work serves as a teaser for a longer, 10-minute podcast.
-
Written Stories Category
- Runner Up - “Saddiq Dzukogi: exploring identity through poetry” by Samuel Hughes from Biloxi, MS
2023 Story State contest winners announced!
Congratulations to Heather Harrison, who won 1st place in the Written Stories category for "9/11: Sept. 11, 2001, through a news editor’s eyes." Annemarie Bohn describes covering devastating attacks 20 years later. Heather was also selected as the 2023 Master Storyteller.
Congratulations to Elizabeth Keen, who won 2nd place in the Written Stories category for “Mike and Me: How One Eccentric College Football Coach Shaped My Life." Elizabeth’s story is about the legendary Mike Leach and his impact on her life and work.
Congratulations to Emma Dotson, who won 3rd place in the Written Stories category for “The Cheese Fry Crawl." In Emma’s own words: “The mission was simple: determine the best cheese fries in Starkville.” Her story takes the reader through taste testing various cheese fries around town in order to find the very best. Emma wrote the story when she was a senior at Mississippi State.
2022 Story State contest winners announced!
Congratulations to Hannah Blankenship, who is this year's winner in the "written stories" category, and this year's overall "Master Storyteller." Hannah won for her first-person narrative "Putting Sight to Sound; two poddies' journey into the case of Curtis Flowers." Hannah is a senior at Mississippi State. She is from Huntsville, Ala., and majors in communication and Spanish.
Congratulations to Heather Harrison and Emma Dotson, who are the winners of this year's "oral stories" category for their episode of the "On the Scene" podcast entitled "The Unhoused." Harrison and Dotson are senior Communication majors at Mississippi State.
Aniya Scott won second place in the "written stories" category for "Fine." She is a junior medical technology major at Mississippi State University. Scott says, "From big city Chicago to small town Macon, Miss., I brought my creativity with me to Mississippi State University."
Matthew Jamison won third place in the "written stories" category for "Our Story." He is in his senior year and is majoring in mechanical engineering at Mississippi State University’s Engineering on the Coast program.
2021 Story State Storytelling Competition Winners Announced!
Four students in MSU’s Department of Communication have earned awards and recognition for their nonfiction submissions in the 2021 Story State Storytelling Competition.
Earning first place in the written stories category with her story “5031,” Ashlynn McCain, a senior communication and psychology major, was also named the Master Storyteller for 2021. McCain’s first place ranking and selection as 2021 Master Storyteller came with a $250 prize.
Second place in the written stories category was awarded to Victoria Newton, a senior communication major, for her dramatic play “Trapped”; third place in the written stories category was awarded to Vernell Allen, a junior communication and English major, for his manuscript “This Is to Say”; Collin Christein, a sophomore communication major, received an honorable mention in the filmed stories category for his short film “No Need to Run.”
Questions?
Please email Anna Blount at storystate@comm.msstate.edu with questions.