A University graduate who builds houses by day and writes novels and short stories in his free time kicked off the English department’s annual awards ceremony Thursday.
Brent Benoit, who has published the novel “All Saints’ Day” and is working on another, read from a short story titled “Everybody’s a Fool for Something.”
The story detailed the life of an old Baton Rouge man who idolized Huey P. Long and compulsively purchased lottery tickets, and was forced in the end to accept his failure.
Benoit said he was “not a good academic person” who was accepted into the University’s Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing after his third application.
The awards ceremony honored faculty and students for their work within the English department, as well as students who had received awards from other departments. Awards were given to students in both undergraduate and graduate divisions.
“The awards serve to provide our students with a further sense of accomplishment and something they can put on their resumés,” said English instructor Nolde Alexius.
Alexius said the winners are chosen by judges who are accomplished writers in many different genres, including fiction, poetry, screenwriting and playwriting.
Lyle Abadie Durio, a chemical engineering junior, said he was surprised to win the Caffee award for the best essay written in a first-year writing class. Abadie’s assignment was to write about a place that had significant meaning to him, so he wrote about Texas A&M’s Fountain Hall dormitory, where he spent time before transferring to LSU last year.
Durio said the winning essay meant the most to him of all his class writings.
“It was the one I really enjoyed doing,” Durio said. “It was more than just an assignment.”
English professor David Madden, who started the University’s creative writing program in 1968, said the undergraduate awards are financed by graduates of the program. Conversely, the graduate awards are supported by people with little or no connection to the University who wish to encourage writing, he said.
One of the early graduates of the program is Rex Reed, a movie critic for the New York Observer, Madden said. Reed sponsors an undergraduate award for screenwriting.
Awards ceremony coordinator Judy Kahn said the awards seek to ensure good writing in the department for years to come.
“We hope to continue to have this kind of quality work from students,” Kahn said. “We have remarkable work judged by established writers.”
Benoit offered advice to discouraged writers.
“If you hit a wall, just go over it,” he said. “People say how hard it is to get published, but most people don’t keep at it.”
Benoit said most of his writings are set in south Louisiana because it is the area with which he is most familiar.
“I feel like I have the authority to talk about people and places I know well,” Benoit said.