Gertrude Johnson Williams Writing Contest Winner Cited

Ebony, Dec, 1998

Arizonan receives $5,000 first prize

For some people, it's the third time they try something that delivers magic results. But for Ebony's literary contest winner; Dawn C. Harrison of Tempe, Arizona, it was the fourth time that became the charm.

"I had entered the [Gertrude Johnson Williams Writing] contest four years in a row," says the 37-year-old mother of two. "This year when I sent the story out, I said, `I don't think I will send anymore stories after this one.' I had kind of given up. It's so weird how things turn out."

Harrison's story, "Two Shots," the tale of a boy who changes his life for the better with the help of a no-nonsense church matron, beat out more than 2,800 aspiring writers who sent in manuscripts. Persistence paid off in the form of a $5,000 first-place prize. But even more than the money, Harrison says it's the new-found confidence she's gained that means so much.

"Up until now I really didn't have enough faith in myself as a writer," says Harrison. "This kind of blessing makes you rethink everything.

Harrison says she wrote the short story based in part on a lady she knew as a child.

"It was inspired by a woman I went to church with in Detroit," she says. "It didn't happen exactly like I wrote in the story, but that's the kind of woman she was ... regal but down to earth ... loved children ... always wore a fur coat that was her pride and joy. She really did carry a gun in the pocket of that coat. It was the joke that if she ever did shoot someone, she would be the type of person to sit on him and read scriptures over him until the ambulance came.

"I don't know what would be worse, getting shot or her lecturing the whole time you were waiting," she says.

Harrison completed the story in about a week and put the contest out of her mind. That is until a call came from a contest coordinator.

"He said, `We'll be getting in touch with you in a few days [if you've won],'" she recalls. "I automatically assumed it would be by phone. So every day when I came home from work, I would run to the machine to see if I had a call."

The call never came. On Friday of that week when she telephoned home to ask her son if she had any messages, he said no. Then he mentioned a Federal Express package with a return address "from something called Johnson Publishing Company."

"I said, `Read it!'" she says, reliving the excitement. "He was just so slow, a typical teenager. I was dying on the other end. He got to the first sentence that said I was a first-prize winner and he just started screaming hysterically. I was at work and I started screaming. Then everyone I worked with came into my office and they started screaming ... It was definitely one of the best days of my life."

As contest rules stipulate, this is Harrison's first published story. She says she's penned dozens of others by hand in notebooks and journals and more recently on a computer she bought for her children, Thomas and Sydney.

The Chicago native says she became drawn to writing when she was a child. She had no siblings, so writing was her friend. The first piece she wrote was a Christmas poem in the second grade. Over the years, her work grew to include writing for weddings, funerals and short stories. Along with the EBONY contest, she has entered countless others over the years, she says, even though finding time to write requires a juggler's agility.

In Arizona, Harrison works two jobs as a bookkeeper for a fine arts foundry called Arizona Bronze and as an international documentation agent for Federal Express. Counting both responsibilities, her working day begins at 7 a.m. and ends after 8 p.m. Once home, she has to help get her children ready for school. When the kids go to sleep, that's her time to sneak in a few minutes--or hours if she's on a roll--of writing time. Indulging her passion means sacrificing sleep. She gets up at 5:30 a.m.

Sitting in the Ebony conference room with the November magazine in her hands, Harrison says it was worth all the trouble. She flips to the page that shows her face and name as contest winner and breaks out into a brilliant smile. In moments, she will be presented a $5,000 check by Johnson Publishing Company CEO John H. Johnson, who started the contest in honor of his late mother, Mrs. Gertrude Johnson Williams, who was a strong advocate of excellence and education. Johnson founded the company with $500 he borrowed on his mother's furniture.

Like Johnson's mother, Harrison's mother, Phyllis Stamz, supported her child's aspirations. Staff members were surprised to learn that Harrison's mother was a featured Jet beauty several years ago.

Months ago, Harrison says she considered giving up on writing contests. Now, she's enjoying a moment she'll carry with her forever.

"I've truly been inspired," she says. "Before, I always felt like `I'm Dawn Harrison, and I write.' Now, I'm Dawn Harrison, the writer."