Third Annual MU Undergraduate Runners Up

Once again, we were fortunate to receive a number of outstanding works for our University of Missouri Undergraduate Writing Competition.

In addition to our winner, Annalee Roustio, we’d like to congratulate three other truly outstanding undergraduate writers:

  • Crystal Cox for “Bumpy Love Body”
  • Elliot Goodman for “The Sleeping Habits of Poltergeists”
  • Jewell Pfister for “Condense”

If you want to hear these works (and trust us, you do) join us on January 28th, at 5:00 p.m. in the George Caleb Bingham Gallery. You can read Annalee’s piece, “Worried, Sick” on our scrolling LED display outside the gallery.

Thanks also to Grace Gardiner and Lindsay Fowler for judging the competition this year.

Winner of the Third Annual MU Undergraduate Writing Competition

We are excited to announce that Annalee Roustio is the winner of the 3rd Annual MU Undergraduate LED Writing competition!

Annalee is a Senior majoring in English and French. She’s interned with Persea Books since last Fall and is crossing her fingers that she’ll get to earn her MFA in creative writing sooner rather than later.

Our judges, Grace Gardiner and Lindsay Fowler, selected Annalee’s emotionally-charged poem, “Worried, Sick” for publication on our scrolling LED display.

You can hear Annalee read “Worried, Sick” at on January 28th, at 5:00 p.m. in the George Caleb Bingham Gallery, and you can read it yourself starting tomorrow, December 9th on our LED display outside the gallery.

Thank you to all the MU students who shared your writing with us, and to the instructors who encouraged your students to do so. We are grateful for the support from our collaborators in the MU English Department and School of Visual Studies.

2nd Annual MU Undergraduate Reading

We want to take another opportunity to acknowledge all of the wonderful writers who participated in our second undergraduate LED writing contest at the University of Missouri. Last Wednesday, we were lucky enough to hear from the winning writer and three fantastic finalists. We were also so pleased to see their friends, family and faculty turn out to celebrate their accomplishments.

We love hosting this event in the George Caleb Bingham Gallery the showcase of undergraduate visual art is a perfect complement, but it seemed particularly meaningful this year. The works that were read all offered insight into the writers’ generation, into their experiences in an era of gun violence and political paralysis. It was powerful to hear these readers raise their voices in a room full of visual art through which their peers are engaging many of the same issues and ideas. Their art and writing sincerely gives us hope for a better future.

We were also fortunate to have a great photographer on hand. The photos above are from Jovani Jones.

Jovani Jones is a senior at the University of Missouri majoring in Health Science. He runs his own photography business with Fisheye Focals and can be found with a camera in hand most of time. His goal is to capture the life of the community through his photography and bring light to local talent and other venues.

Thanks again to Catherine Armbrust for hosting our event, and Jeff Wasserboehr for judging the contest!

Ether by Annalee Roustio

We have installed Annalee Roustio‘s poem, “Ether,” right outside the George Caleb Bingham Gallery. “Ether” was selected as the winning piece in our Second Annual MU Undergraduate Writing Competition, and will be up on display into the new year.

Like all of our installations, you can stop by and read it at any time. If you’d like to hear Annalee to read it, then you’ll have to join us for our celebration of the undergraduate writers at  University of Missouri. The event will be inside the gallery on Wednesday, December 5th at 5:00 p.m.. The contest runners up will also be sharing their excellent works.

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Second Annual MU Undergraduate Runners Up

Just like last year, we were fortunate to receive a number of outstanding works for our University of Missouri Undergraduate Writing Competition.

In addition to this year’s winner, Annalee Roustio, we’d like to acknowledge three other talented undergraduate writers:

  • Darren Baker for his incisive poem, “New Old Game”
  • Gabrielle Hesse for her tragic piece ,”The Weight You Borrow”
  • Alyssa Ripley for her brisk yet intimate poem, “Bargaining”

If you want to hear these works, join us for a reading on December 5th, at 5:00 p.m. in the George Caleb Bingham Gallery.

Thanks again to Jeff Wasserboehr for judging the competition.

2nd Annual MU LED Reading December 5

Please join us at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, December 5 at the George Caleb Bingham Gallery for a reading to celebrate the talented undergraduate writers of the University of Missouri!

You’ll get to hear from Annalee Roustio, the winner of our 2nd Annual MU Undergraduate LED Writing Contest, as well as the runners up.

Annalee’s winning poem, “Ether,” will be scrolling along outside the gallery. We promise it’s worth a few moments out in the cold!

Warm up inside with snacks and refreshments, and while you’re there you can enjoy the visual art of the 2018-19 MU Undergrad Juried Exhibition.

Find the reading on Facebook for updates and details.

Winner of the 2nd Annual MU Undergraduate Writing Competition

We are proud to announce that Annalee Roustio is the winner of the 2nd Annual MU Undergraduate LED Writing competition!

Annalee is in her third year at MU, where she studies English and plans to declare a second major in French. She’s a tutor and outreach representative for the campus Writing Center, a copywriter at Marketing by Emma, and an intern for the poetry division of Persea Books. In terms of future plans, beyond traveling to AWP this spring with Persea Books and hopefully studying abroad this summer, Annalee has begun exploring MFA programs. She should probably complete her personal website. Until then, feel free to add her on LinkedIn; her brief (and with luck, ever-growing!) smattering of publications and prizes can be found there. Special thanks to Rebecca Pelky for her helpful feedback and encouragement.

Our judge, Jeff Wasserboehr, selected Annalee’s moving, contemplative poem, “Ether” for publication on our scrolling LED display.

You can hear Annalee read “Ether” at on December 5th, at 5:00 p.m. in the George Caleb Bingham Gallery, and you can read it yourself anytime in December on the display outside the gallery.

We’re very grateful to all the MU students who shared their writing with us as well as the instructors who encouraged their students to do so. Thank you!

MU Undergraduate Reading Event

We moved on to our next installation, Sonnet (51) by Nikki Wallschlaeger, without posting any photos from the wonderful reading and poster-printing event that wrapped up our MU Undergraduate Writing Competition. So, in the spirit of better late than never, we’ve finally organized some images to share!

Click the images to read the captions. Not pictured is runner-up Sabrina Brons, who read her piece, “Gossip.” The first gallery features images from the George Caleb Bingham Gallery, where the reading was held. The second set of images is from SRLBX x THERETHERENOW, where we held a reception with refreshments, a reading room stocked full of artist’s books and zines, and a poster-printing session for Kirstin Smith’s broadside (the contest’s publication prize).

More from Sonnet (51)

Tonight we got to spend some more quality time with our current installation, Nikki Wallschlaeger’s Sonnet (51).

As the sun began to set, downtown Columbia was already coming alive. The reflections of countless passersby stepped in and out of the camera’s frame as we photographed the poem. At just under a minute, the poem will repeat over 1,440 times each day. It’s fun to imagine all the serendipitous reading experiences that Nikki’s work will provide on the corner of Hitt and Locust.

If you’re in Columbia, please visit our LED display and experience it for yourself. Whoever said a picture is worth a thousand words had never tried photographing a moving poem.

Sonnet (51) can also be found in Nikki’s book Crawlspace, from Bloof Books.

Sonnet (51) by Nikki Wallschlaeger

Our April installation is up! If you’re in Columbia, you can stop by SRLBX x THERETHERENOW (207 Hitt St.) to read Nikki Wallschlaeger’s poem, Sonnet (51). If you’re not local, then wait just a little bit longer and we’ll have a video of the complete piece scrolling along our LED display.

In the meantime, here are few pictures from our blustery installation tonight (featuring a steely, parka-clad Carley). We’ll have more when the wind dies down enough to use a tripod!

Sonnet (51) was originally published in Nikki’s book, Crawlspace (Bloof). We’ll also be creating a limited edition Risograph broadside for Sonnet (51), to add to our LED broadside series. Check back for news about the printing.