Concluding a year full of outstanding undergraduate student writing supported by the M. Garren Tinney Memorial Fund, The Writing Program in the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts (HFA) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2024-2025 M. Garren Tinney Writing Awards. While this Fund is administered by The Writing Program, the M. Garren Tinney Writing Awards given in Spring are managed and selected by three separate departments/programs: The Writing Program, the Department of English, and the Writing & Literature Program at the College of Creative Studies (CCS). Award winners received a $500 cash prize.
The M. Garren Tinney Writing Award administered by the Writing Program was selected from faculty nominations for outstanding pieces created by undergraduates in a Writing Program course.
Winner: Caitlin Bergevin ’26 (Political Science)
Winning entry: "Kayfabe and the Grief of a One-Sided Friendship”
Caitlin wrote this winning entry in Kara Mae Brown’s Writing 105C class. Per Brown, “I just adored the way that this student wove her complicated friendship experience in with her learning about professional wrestling and the phenomenon of kayfabe. When I think of the phrase from M. Garren Tinney's bio that he was a ‘student of the human condition,’ it calls to mind exactly the kind of work the writer is doing in this essay.”
Honorable Mention: Kaden Ustick, “Trans People in History and Hormone Therapy” (nominated by Aili Pettersson Peeker)
The M. Garren Tinney Writing Award administered by the Department of English focused on creative writing and was open to undergraduates in their third and fourth years of study at UCSB.
Winner: Anouk Wijeratne ‘25 (English)
Winning entry: “REMIGRATE” (multimedia poetry collection)
Anouk Wijerante discusses her project by explaining: “In my REMIGRATE multimedia poetry collection, I reconcile the intimate and mundane with brutal political reality, reimagining escape through a loving release and rebirth. My lived experience as a second-generation child interweaves the tensions of restrictive motherhood, imperialist displacement, and generational trauma with the dreamlike inner world of a quixotic, archaic lover. As the daughter of two Sri Lankan immigrants—a marriage shadowed by colonial violence and the impossibility of true assimilation—I confront the complexity of achieving personal joy and romance within an oppressive sphere. This collection of poems moves through the urgent political consciousness of a displaced people, journeying toward the soft, breathtaking moments of humanity beneath the staggering weight of marginalization. Dismantling the deep-rooted colorism, insecurity, and confinement of displaced trauma requires an internal escape. My work examines the idea of place as both a shifting homeland and a steadfast inner world, harkening to formal language and metaphor while experimenting with free verse and spatial diversity. In experimenting with multimodal poetry, I expanded these pieces into mixed media, drawing together color, collages, photography, art, typography, and design to create a multimodal collection. I first worked on this poetry collection with Professor Swati Rana in ENGL 109: Craft of Poetry. I then developed the project into a visual, mixed media combination of graphic design, collage, art, and typography for the Professional Writing Minor Multimedia Track application.”
The M. Garren Tinney Writing Award administered by CCS Writing & Literature program focused on creative nonfiction and was open to all UCSB undergraduate students.
Winner: Nina Jekel ‘25 (Theater and Environmental Studies)
Winning entry: “2010 Grey Honda Civic, 105k Miles”
This award was judged by Komal Surani, a film and television writer, award winning poet, and published journalist. Surani commented that “The writing is lyrical, vivid, and beautiful. I’m drawn to the way the writer uses her old car to tell us vignettes about growing up and being terrified of the future, even when it is wide open and waiting for us; the writer skillfully reminds us what we sometimes forget—even objects can feel real, sentimental, and beloved.”
In loving memory of Michael “Garren” Tinney ‘01 (L&S English), his mother, Donna “Dee Dee” Tinney, established the M. Garren Tinney Memorial Fund at UCSB in June 2023 to honor the memory of her son and his interest in and passion for writing. The Fund provides numerous opportunities, now and into the future, for UCSB undergraduate students committed to writing and who have an interest in pursuing writing-related careers. The Fund supports the M. Garren Tinney Writing Fellows, M. Garren Tinney Writing Awards, and the M. Garren Tinney Travel Awards.
The Writing Program will start to accept applications in Fall 2025 for the third annual M. Garren Tinney Writing Fellowships, followed by the M. Garren Tinney Travel Awards. The M. Garren Tinney Writing Awards will take place again in Spring 2026.
