Senior writers have winning way with words

It was mostly to please her husband that Cheryl Thacker entered the Silver Pen Writing Contest, sponsored by Salt Lake County Aging Services.

A few months before, she wrote a story about a squirrel, and her husband strongly encouraged her to submit it for publication. The contest seemed the perfect route.

"I saw (the Silver Pen contest) and thought maybe I could do that and I could appease (my husband)," Thacker said, with a laugh.

Thacker was surprised to find out a few weeks ago that her story was chosen as the second-place winner in the non-fiction category.

"(My husband) said 'I told you so. We need to get it published,"' she said. "I realized this is a fantasy for me. It awakened an interest in me to learn how to pursue (this dream)."

Thacker was one of 149 seniors from Salt Lake County who entered the first Silver Pen Writing Contest, designed to showcase the talents of Salt Lake County senior writers 60 years and older.

"This is the very act of saying 'I'm going to put something on paper and make it fit,"' said David Turner, program manager for Salt Lake County Aging Services. "Participants had to organize their thoughts ... and let someone judge them. If writing is something they haven't done for a long time or professionally, it's difficult."

The contest had three categories: fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Senior centers began collecting entries in February, and by April 2, 176 entries had been received. Participants were encouraged to submit recent works as opposed to something they wrote many years ago.

Turner said the contest was a way for seniors to reconnect. Many seniors taking writing classes at senior centers read each other's work and offered feedback.

Florin R. Nielsen, of West Jordan, teaches a poetry writing class at the Mount Olympus Senior Center. He has discovered it's most effective if he did an assignment himself before asking his students to do it. He was surprised to win first place in the poetry category for his poem "Elegy to Youth."

"I re-learned the importance of metaphor, of form, of form helping to make my thinking more precise," he said.

Errol Remington of South Salt Lake, who won first place in the non-fiction category, said he discovered public speaking is more difficult than he remembered. The winners in each category read their works aloud at the award ceremony May 3.