Callooh! Callay! A Brillig Look at the USC Libraries' Wonderland Award

I just discovered this incredible contest for creative works inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll.


"About the Award 

 The Wonderland Award is an annual multidisciplinary competition that encourages new scholarship and creative work related to Lewis Carroll (1832-1898). The award was established in 2004 with the sponsorship of Linda Cassady. The 1st award was made in spring 2005; speaking at that event was the great-granddaughter of Alice, Vanessa St. Clair. Since then, there have been more than 250 student submissions and the success of the program prompted USC to open the competition to students from other Southern California colleges and universities for the 2011 award. "



I choose some special works from the contest to present here.

MURDER MYSTERY, 2007, SAMPLE PAGES

 Jillian Burcar 

English (Creative Writing)

Prose work, 2007

"One of the most unusual entries ever received for the contest involves this series of documents that together compose a bizarre murder mystery. Burcar’s work proposes a scenario in which a girl named Alice (Arisu in Japanese, the name she used for her blog) methodically plots to kill her mother with thallium, a toxic metallic element with a long and sensational history of use as a poison. Included in this piece is a scientific flow chart of Alice’s experiments on rodents, as well as a printout of her sixteen-month online diary where she tracked her progress and discussed her dissections of rabbits. In addition, documentation of the aftermath of her “success” includes a local newspaper article and a memo detailing what can only be assumed is the attempt by her abusive father to profit from the sad chain of events with a tell-all exclusive story."

found Here

 Jillian Burcar 

ALICE, EATEN, 2005 

 Siel Ju 

English (Literature and Creative Writing) 

Poetry: “alice, eaten,” 2005


"A graduate of USC’s Creative Writing program, Ju evokes the darkness at the edge of Carroll’s imaginative and playful wordscape. For all of the light-hearted adventures Alice encounters, the story revolves around a young girl in a foreign world, beset by terrifying forces beyond her control. Seen here are two out of a suite of twelve poems, the titles of which are taken directly from chapters four and seven of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland."

Found Here

 Siel Ju 

AN IMAGINING OF THE DESK OF LEWIS CARROLL, 2008
 Sara Hegarty
Cinematic Arts (Production)
Art installation: “An Imagining of the Desk of Lewis Carroll,” 2008


"A fourth place award went to a work that offers a fanciful reconstruction of Lewis Carroll’s desk, where he composed his renowned children’s literature, wrote in his journal, and formulated his logic puzzles. Hegarty asks us to ponder whether, as he was furiously dashing off one of the 100,000 personal letters he sent to friends and acquaintances over the course of his life, he looked up from his desk, cluttered with games, word puzzles, and photographs, and saw himself in a mirror—and whether this mirror could have inspired the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass."

Found Here

 Sara Hegarty

DRINK ME, 2008 
Sativa Novak 
Fine Arts (Studio Art) 
Photograph: “Drink Me,” 2008 


"Literature is rife with stories of protagonists—like Alice—who in the course of their journeys encounter unusual objects in their paths. A fourth place award went to an entry that gives a brief glimpse into the lab of the mad (and altogether unseen) alchemist of Alice in Wonderland. The work area is stocked with vials full of colored liquids, octopi, exotic herbs and spices, granulated powders, and a bottle of mind-altering absinthe. In the middle of it all a flask labeled “Drink Me” alerts viewers they are getting a privileged look behind the scenes at the ingredients that went into the foods Alice eats near the beginning of her great adventure down the rabbit hole."

Found Here

Sativa Novak 

ALICE IN WONDERLAND, 2007 
 Derrick Sun 
Communication (Public Relations) 
Photo-essay: “Alice in Wonderland,” 2007 


 "Sun’s work features vignettes inspired by various scenes from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. A montage of black-and-white, color, and artfully modified photographs reveals a psychological depth to Alice’s character as she explores Carroll’s exotic invented landscape. These images, punctuated with quotations from the story, invite one to participate vicariously in Alice’s journey. The role-playing evident here is reminiscent of certain “beggar maid” photographs Carroll staged around the same time he was composing the Alice stories."

Found Here

Derrick Sun 

SCRAPBOOK, 2007 
 Janet Thielke
English (Creative Writing) 
Scrapbook, 2007 

" A second place award went to a work offering clues to a mystery that has long intrigued scholars. Lewis Carroll wrote almost daily in his diary, affording a fascinating look into his life and sources of inspiration. However, soon after his death in 1898, several volumes of his diaries disappeared, including those surrounding the time he spent with his muse Alice Liddell. Thielke’s scrapbook, which purports to be Lewis Carroll’s, contains poems, photographs, acrostics, and, intriguingly enough, part of his personal diary from June 27, 1863—a day that some have theorized Carroll actually proposed marriage to the young Alice. The photographs inside the scrapbook echo portraits taken by Carroll in the mid-nineteenth century."

 Janet Thielke