MANA's COMMEMORATIVE WRITERS' CONTEST WINNERS:

MarketingNewAuthors.com is pleased to announced the winners of its Commemorative Writers' Contest.

• The First Prize goes to Cara Williams for her essay, "Freedom, It's Free."

• The Second Prize goes to MariaGuia de Leon for her poem, "What America Left Me."

• The Third Prize goes to Barry Carter for his essay, "A Country Contradicted."

Writers were asked to submit entries about one of the following themes:

1) What does the word "American" mean to you?

OR

2) What makes being an American complex?

Thank you to all those who submitted! Everyone who submitted an entry made this contest a valuable opportunity to encourage writers to reflect on their experience in this very unique 250-year-old country.

MANA will post the remaining winning entries over the next two months.

The first entry to post is the Barry Carter's "A Country Contradicted:"

I pledge to flags I've never fully known, a land stitched loud from immigrant and thief, where freedom's psalm is sung in different tones depending whose ancestors bore the grief. I love the highway's promise, wide and bright, the diner coffee, strangers who say hey—and still I carry names erased from sight, the debts we owe but never learn to pay. We built a house on words we don't yet keep: that all are equal, all deserve a chance, while half its rooms are locked, and some still sleep outside the door we dressed in grand romance. So I am proud and grieving in one breath—this country teaches life by naming death.