ADA, Okla. – The 21st Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival took place on the East Central University campus recently, with more than 60 authors and poets converging for a three-day reading festival, drawing record crowds and strong community engagement.

The festival kicked off Thursday morning, April 2, with an introduction and welcome by founder and organizer, Dr. Ken Hada.

The first session of the event was opened by local poet and ECU Communications Specialist, Cody Baggerly, followed by Ann Howells, a lifelong poet and longtime Texas resident who is an eight-time Pushcart and two time Best of the Net nominee, and Paul Austin, a former theatre professional whose career has spanned on- and off-Broadway productions as well as television and film before turning his focus to poetry.

Writers from across Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Indiana filled the schedule with readings throughout the day, leading into an evening headlined by featured reader Joseph Fasano. A New York native, Fasano read to a capacity crowd inside the Estep Multimedia Center, sharing selections from his recent work.

Fasano, who holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Harvard University and an MFA from Columbia University, later reflected on the experience in a social media post.

“Oklahoma is one of my new favorite places to read poems,” he wrote. “What a beautiful community, full of people with poetry in their hearts. Thank you, Ken Hada, East Central University, Scissortail, all the booksellers and volunteers, and everyone who helped create a magical event.”

The festival continued Friday, April 3, with 11 sessions that carried the momentum into the afternoon, culminating in the announcement of the Annual Scissortail Undergraduate Writing Contest winners.

Open to any undergraduate student that attends the festival, regardless of university or state, the contest remains a longstanding Scissortail tradition. This year’s entries were judged by poet and festival reader Brent Newsom, with students representing six universities: ECU, the University of Oklahoma (OU), Murray State College, Cameron University, Oklahoma Baptist University (OBU), and Oklahoma City University (OCU).

Nic Sampson of Murray State and Emma Browning of the OU received honorable mentions.

Awards were then presented to the top three finishers. Jayde Landreth of ECU earned third place and a $100 prize for a series of poems. Elena Streett of OBU placed second, receiving $150 for her poetry. First place went to Alex Freiburg of OU, who received $250 for his creative nonfiction piece, “Self Portrait.”

Each winner was given five minutes to share a portion of their work, offering the audience a glimpse into the emerging voices celebrated throughout the festival.

“Winning third place in the Scissortail Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest was a validating and meaningful milestone as an emerging poet,” said Landreth. “Reading my poem to such a supportive and encouraging crowd and receiving their compliments motivated me beyond words!”

Friday’s featured session took place next with current Kansas poet laureate, Traci Brimhall. A University Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and Narrative Medicine at Kansas State University, Brimhall has authored five poetry collections and has been featured in several prominent journals of poetry and essays.

Brimhall, who holds a bachelor of arts from Florida State University, an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and a PhD from Western Michigan University, read from her recent works to another capacity crowd.

At the conclusion of the festival, Brimhall stated, “Poetry communities are the best and the Scissortail Writing Festival in Ada, Okla. is one of the most fun and welcoming groups.”

During Brimhall’s autograph session later in the night, a spoken-word open-mic was hosted in the lobby of the Bill S. Cole University Center, allowing the college students in attendance the opportunity to read their own writing alongside several of the professional authors and poets.

The event concluded Saturday, April 4, with 14 more authors and poets who read over the course of four sessions. Writers rounding out the event included national award-winning novelist, Rilla Askew, senior staff writer for the Chickasaw Press and award-winning poet, Phillip Carrol Morgan, and more recognizable names from across Oklahoma and Missouri.

Saturday’s featured session was then headlined by Chera Hammons Miller, a former Scissortail reader who returned to the festival for the first time in a decade. A Texas poet, Miller is the 2017 Southwest Book Award winner and the 2020 Helen C. Smith Memorial Award winner. Her fifth full-length poetry collection, “Birds of America,” is forthcoming from The Dial Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Miller began her reading by briefly recounting the health concerns that prevented her from attending Scissortail for the last several years, which led directly into her reading of poetry from her 2020 collection, “Maps of Injury.” She then concluded her session with a series of new works from her forthcoming collection.

The final session of the event served as a reunion for Miller and many of the regular attendees who have continued to visit the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival over the years with one attendee commenting, “Chera read in the very first session I ever attended in 2017, when I was a student at ECU. I remember because I wrote an assignment on her reading. Seeing her again all these years later after she’s accomplished so much was a wonderful experience.”

Submission to participate as a reader for the 22nd Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival will open some time in October of 2026. Information will be made available at ecuscissortail.blogspot.com/.

The 22nd Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival will take place April 1-3, 2027.

-ECU-