Former Cañada College student and current Belmont resident Rose
Whitmore has received the prestigious William Peden Prize, which recognizes the
best piece of fiction published in The Missouri Review during the
previous volume year.
Whitmore will receive a check for $1,000 and will read at the annual
Peden Prize reception in Columbia, Missouri. “It’s such an honor to be
recognized with this prize,” she said. Whitmore’s writing has appeared in Mason’s
Road, Fourth Genre and the 2013 California Prose Directory, an
anthology about the state of California. She has work forthcoming in the Mid-American
Review and The Sun.
Whitmore’s Peden Prize-winning story is about a little girl who grows
up in a cannery in Eureka. It is titled, The Queen of Pacific Tides. “I grew
up commercially fishing smelt, a world that is both beautiful and imbued with
the guts and sand and cold,” Whitmore said.
“There are many stories about young girls on the precipice of
adolescence, digging in their heels against change, but ‘The Queen of Pacific
Tides’ manages to surprise on every level,” says contest judge Tina May Hall.
“The story is a gorgeous story all around and is one of those that will stay
with you, will sneak into your dreams and perfume them in strange and wonderful
ways.”
Whitmore’s path towards becoming an award-winning fiction writer began
at Cañada after a pilgrimage across Spain in 2009. “I came home and decided I
would take a step towards becoming a writer, something I always wanted to be –
something the pilgrimage inspired me to act on.” She enrolled in a creative
writing class taught by Professor Mike Nagler. “I loved Mike’s class, and
somewhere about half way through I decided I wanted to pursue an MFA (Master of
Fine Arts) in creative writing. I used the two stories I wrote in his class for
my application and was admitted to the University of New Hampshire that
spring.”
The mere act of getting to Cañada and Nagler’s class was, at times, an
adventure for Whitmore. Living in Berkeley and working in San Francisco,
Whitmore would take MUNI to Caltrain, disembark at Redwood City, where she
would jump on her scooter, which she parked at the train station, and ride up
the hill to Cañada. “Round trip it took about an hour and a half,” she said. “I
would leave my job in San Francisco, fleeing the fog and noise of the city just
wanting to be in that class. I would arrive and the air would be warm, and the
campus green, and everyone in my class very supportive. It was a great
experience.”
Nagler said Whitmore was a valuable member of his class. “She offered
enthusiastic critical analysis of her classmates’ efforts but she did it with
great honesty that was gently and encouragingly given. Her insights helped the
class to be better, and, for that, as well as her gifts as a writer, I valued
greatly her membership in it.”
Nagler said Whitmore is a terrific example of the diverse student body
served at community colleges. “She already had a degree when she decided to
come back to school,” he said. “She was truly a lifelong learner.”
Whitmore grew up on the Peninsula and graduated from UC Berkeley. Her
mother is a Cañada alum. “My childhood was filled with fishing and backpacking
and trips to Baja,” she said. “I became a West Coast writer in a very North East
place. I began to write about California and the Pacific, I always like to
joke, to mentally escape the New England winter. But I do have New England to
thank. The program at New Hampshire allowed me the freedom to see my version of
the West Coast more clearly, to solidify my experiences and have space from
them.”
After graduating from the University of New Hampshire in May, Whitmore
moved back to the Peninsula. She is currently living in Belmont, working on a
novel, a collection of short stories, and an essay collection. She is also a
copywriter for a company in San Diego.
