The Friends of Medford Library and the University of South Carolina Lancaster are proud to announce the winners of the Elliot White Springs Prize for Fiction and Poetry Contest and the Medford Poetry Contest.

Adrianne Horton won the Elliot White Springs Prize for Fiction Contest for her short story "Dead Man's Bridge."

Traci Carnes won first place in the Medford Poetry Contest for her poem, "RiverPlay," and this year we are pleased to announce a special second place in the contest, Oksana Slobozhan's poem "Northern Dream."

The sixth annual Elliot White Springs Prize for Fiction Contest is dedicated to Colonel Elliot White Springs in recognition of his contributions to American fiction. Springs, born in Lancaster in 1896, was a well-known writer of fiction during the 1920's. His stories were semibiographical, blending fiction and factual episodes.

The mission of the contest in his honor is to support and encourage writers of fiction by offering annually a cash prize of $1000 to a currently enrolled USC Lancaster student. The second annual Medford Poetry Contest offers a cash award of $500.00 to the University of South Carolina Lancaster student submitting the strongest poem. Both contests were judged this year by Kwame Dawes, a noted professor and poet at the University of South Carolina. Dawes awarded the annual prizes to the students at the annual Friends of Medford Library meeting on March 18, 2004, in the atrium of the library.