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Eric Wayne Roberts
The Flight of Industry
1989
Born in Roff, Paul Hughes attended Ada High School and earned his B.A. with honors from East Central in 1936.
At ECU, Hughes served as president of the senior class, editor of the campus newspaper, and captain of the debate team. At age 27, Hughes published his first novel, Retreat from Rostov, with Random House. He went on to publish 15 other books, including Challenge at Changsa, Jeff, and the Salsbury Story, as well as numerous short stories in magazines such as Collier's, Woman's Home Companion, Vogue, and Liberty.
After his death, his family established an endowment with the ECU Foundation that funds the writing award offered in his name. Many recipients of the award have become published writers and students in quality graduate writing programs across the country.
The Department of English and Languages at East Central University conducts the Paul Hughes Memorial Writing Award every year, a writing competition open to all enrolled ECU
students.
Works of poetry, fiction, drama, and nonfiction essay are eligible for consideration. Cash prizes are awarded for first, second, and third place.
Aphion Moore
Untitled
1997
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The First Place winner of the Paul Hughes Memorial Award for 2026 is Maia Clark. Maia is not only an accomplished poet and short story writer, but was one of the editors for the 2025 edition of Originals.
In Originals' 2026 Edition, she writes, “I hesitate to call myself a poet. I did not always write poetry. I was a creative writer. I wrote prose. I preferred prose. And that is because I did not know poetry. When I wrote prose, I was trying to do what poetry does. I was trying to express motifs that begged to exist beyond subtext. I think that this desire gave me a ‘heavy’ authorial hand. With poetry, the heavy hand is a weapon that you can wield with tact. I liked that. With poetry, the art of implication is also tactical. And I liked that, too.”
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Hillary Yue Han
Multicultural
1997