Posted on February 28, 2001 at 2:16 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Five students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have received top honors in the preliminaries of the Southern Literary Festival Contest.

The five winners, will compete in the finals of the Southern Literary Festival at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi, April 5-7.

The finalists in the Formal Essay category are: Jennifer Kennah of Anniston, “Southern Propriety and Its Cultural Demise Through Flannery O’Connor’s Mother Characters”; and Molly Hurley of Muscle Shoals for “Bodily Transgressions: Containing the Dutchess of Malfi.” In the Informal Essay category the winners are: Lucy Jones, of Huntsville, “Illusion in Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: Self Destruction or Ignorant Bliss” and Monica Ssenkoloto [cq] of Uganda for “The Myth of the Noble Savage and Its Implications in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael.” Maye Kuehner, of San Diego, is a finalist in the short story category for “In the Interest of Time.”

The Southern Literary Festival is a three-day creative writer’s conference held each spring. The festival consists of readings and workshops by well-known poets and prose writers. This year’s festival will feature novelist John Dufresne, author of Louisiana Power and Light, poet Ava Haymon and readings by winners of the SLF student writers contests.