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“I wouldn’t want to get a reputation that I was a person who wrote for judges.”

— Diane Pleninger

By Sonya Senkowsky

Sept. 29, 2004 — For those who think that literary and monetary rewards don’t coexist, pay attention to the tale of now two-time high-stakes essay contest winner Diane Brooks Pleninger.

Anchorage writer Pleninger, who won $20,000 and first place in the international Shell Economist essay contest last year by writing about a favorite fungus, has won $10,000 in yet another essay contest.

Pleninger’s win this time, a fourth place, came in the Templeton Foundation’s Power of Purpose awards, where her winning entry was again inspired by a fungus. The first-place winner received $100,000.

Pleninger insists she writes for the experience, not the money. But, since she is an accountant, her last two wins might serve as a lesson to the rest of us about how one might benefit from at least pursuing the potentially most enriching writing opportunities.

When you find a contest giving out a total of $500,000: “Anybody who likes to write would be silly not to sit down (and write), just for the experience of trying to put out their best work,” she says.

The contest attracted about 7,300 like-minded entrants.

Plenginger learned of the Templeton Foundation contest through New Yorker magazine. The contest topic did not at first thrill her, so she approached the contest as a personal challenge: How could a writer more comfortable with irony than uplift tackle the unfamiliar genre of inspirational writing — and still be true to herself? “I wouldn’t want to get a reputation that I was a person who wrote for judges.”

Pleninger was still mulling when she came upon a scientific journal article that caught her imagination — in an account that was also notable for the researcher’s own infectious enthusiasm. And then,“it all clicked.”

The result was an essay musing on the purpose demonstrated in the relationship between an opportunistic fungus known as a rust, and the rock cress, a plant that the rust alters to create a “bloom,” which in turn helps the fungus reproduce by attracting insects to spread its spores.

Pleninger is an amateur naturalist with an interest in fungi. Friends have suggested that maybe it is time Pleninger put together a collection of her fungus-inspired essays. She’s considering it, she says, but won't rush it. “I have bits and pieces and scraps of stuff, but it’s just a crazy quilt,” she said. “It’s not something I would inflict on people.”

Despite her successes, Pleninger said she still doesn’t feel like a “real writer” She cited John Gardner’s Art of Fiction, in which he describes writing as the creation of “a vivid and continuous dream.” By contrast, said Pleninger, “My essays are more like naps. Vivid, maybe, but short. If I ever write anything that makes a reader feel like he’s taken a long trip to a distant place, instead of a short hike, I'll feel like a writer.”

One footnote: Pleninger also re-entered the Shell Economist competition this year — “so I wouldn’t establish a pattern of being afraid of failure [or] of not doing so well this time.” The topic this time was outsourcing, which she researched intensively. “It was almost like taking a semester minicourse in labor issues,” she says. “It was a wonderful experience.” Pleninger says fungi did not figure in that entry. Award-winners for that contest have yet to be announced.