Award Opportunities

Spring 2008 Prizes

 Entry Rules:

  • No more than 2 entries per prize per student.
  • No one piece of work may be entered in more than 2 contests.
  • Please turn in manuscripts to the English department office, 
    111 Shattuck Hall by 4 p.m., Friday, April 25, 2008.

Submission Prizes

  • Virginia Lee Barnes Prize
    For the best critical essay by a senior in English, American Studies, Medieval Studies.
  • Gertrude Claytor Award of The Academy of American Poets
    For the best poem or group of poems, open to all undergraduates.
  • Minnie Ryan Dwight Prize
    For excellence in journalistic writing, open to all undergraduates.
  • Kathryn McFarland Memorial Prize
    For any form of creative writing, open to all undergraduates.
  • Sydney Robertson McLean Short Story Prize
    Open to all undergraduates.
  • Anne Singer '69 Memorial Award
    To a student who shows both the promise of a gift for writing and a dedication to craftsmanship, preference to first years, sophomores, and juniors.
  • Ada L. F. Snell Poetry Prize
    For the best poem or group of poems, the whole not to exceed fifty lines, open to all undergraduates.

Fellowship & Research Funds

  • Naomi Kitay Fellowship
    Awarded on basis of merit, as an aid toward a career in creative prose writing. Please pick up application form in English Department office, 111 Shattuck Hall.
  • Phyllis Merrill '30 and Virginia Merrill Lafferty '37 Research Fund
    To be used for student research to purchase research material or to travel to a research library to complete her project. Based on merit of project and good academic standing. Please see Administrative Assistant for application details.
  • Jean Sudrann '39 Research Fund
    To support student research in the Department of English, travel grants for research or special projects. Open to all students; not limited to English majors. Please see Administrative Assistant for application details.

Meet the Department

Cormac McCarthy ... James Joyce ... Cyberpunk? Ask Bill Quillian.

Corinne Demas is the author of two novels, two collections of short stories, and numerous books for children.

Poet Robert Shaw also writes essays and books about John Donne, George Herbert, and the history and use of blank verse.

At present Shakespeare scholar Frank Brownlow is working on a new book about Queen Elizabeth I and her favorite torturer.

Lois Brown’s research and teaching focus on nineteenth-century African American and American literature and culture, abolitionist narratives, and evangelical juvenilia.

How have modern Jewish writers and makers of popular culture responded to the challenge of adjusting to America? Donald Weber knows.

Interested in women’s writing during the American Civil War or the role of Frankenstein?—that’s right, the monster—in America’s complex racial history? These are some of Elizabeth Young’s areas of interest.

Peter Berek’s recent scholarly work focuses on Shakespeare and early modern theatre, with a particular interest in representations of Jews, gender and sexuality, and the history of the book.

Where’s Christopher Benfey? In Slate, the New York Times Sunday Book Review, the New Republic, the New York Review of Books, and the Times Literary Supplement.