Thank you, Bergen!

Three Bergen Community College Students Awarded

for Literary Excellence

2009-10 Edition of Literary Journal The Labyrinth Debuts

(From left) Yuna Youn (of Palisades Park), Lynda Kraar (of Teaneck) and Amanda Viehmeyer (of Garfield) took home top honors in The Labyrinth’s literary competition.

With the debut of the 2009-10 edition of The Labyrinth, Bergen Community College’s literary journal, 25 student authors can add a new adjective to their portfolios: published.

Student authors submit their creative nonfiction, fiction and poetry pieces to The Labyrinth’s faculty advisers (Bergen professors James Zorn and Dorothy Altman), who work with a student editorial board to select entries from hundreds of submissions for inclusion in the publication.

Student editors then compile and oversee the production of the journal. The 2009-10 edition features 37 works by 25 authors.

At The Labyrinth’s April 30, 2009 launch event, prizes were awarded to the authors of the top works in each of the three submission categories. Two professors from a local university judged the 2009-10 entries: John Parras and Marthe Witte. Parras also attended the journal’s launch event and presented certificates and awards to the honorees.

The winners are:

• Nonfiction – Lynda Kraar (of Teaneck) for “Fashioning My Father After Myself”

• Fiction – Amanda Viehmeyer (of Garfield) for “Etiology”

• Poetry – Yuna Youn (of Palisades Park) for “Blushing Red”

“Both Professor Zorn and I are impressed with the level of writing talent at Bergen Community College and we congratulate the award winners,” Dr. Altman said. “Additionally, we are pleased to announce that we are seeing a rise in enrollment in our creative writing program and are adding additional courses to our curriculum.”

Many of The Labyrinth’s 25 contributors shared their works by reading them aloud at the April 30 launch. The 66-page anthology, The Labyrinth, is available through Bergen’s Department of English.

Bergen Community College is a public two-year coeducational college, enrolling more than 15,000 students in Associate in Arts, Associate in Science, and Associate in Applied Science degree programs and certificate programs. More than 10,000 students are enrolled in non-credit, professional courses through the Division of Continuing Education, the Institute for Learning in Retirement, the Philip J. Ciarco Jr. Learning Center, located at 355 Main Street, Hackensack, and Bergen at the Meadowlands, located at 1280 Wall Street West, Lyndhurst. Information about the College is available at www.bergen.edu or by phoning the Welcome Center at (201) 447-7200 .