Prizes
Fall 2023 Prizes
Rome Prizes
David Rome
For the best lyric essay by a currently enrolled Brown undergraduate. This form includes essays written in poetical or experimental forms that emphasize artfulness.
- 1st Place Winner: Fara Odunlami, "the crack"
- 2nd Place Winner: Lucy Cooper-Silvas, "Invasive: A New Prayer for the Land"
Rose Low Rome
For the best poem or poems written by a currently enrolled Brown undergraduate.
- 1st Place Winner: Jules Griswold, "Five Poems for Saving Money"
- 2nd Place Winner: Julian Ansorge, "How To Live"
Arlene Rome Ten Eyck & Peter H. Ten Eyck
For the best essay on literary theory by a currently enrolled Brown undergraduate.
- 1st Place Winner: Corinne Leong, "Take Everything Away: The Body without Organs and Liberatory Memory in Never Let Me Go"
- 2nd Place Winner: Daniel Zheng, "The World Without Animals"
Deadline
Friday, December 1, 2023
Prizes
1st Prize $150
2nd Prize $50
Barbara Banks Brodsky Prizes
Barbara Banks Brodsky - Real-World Writing
Awarded to a full-time junior or senior. Submission may come from the spectrum of nonfiction: literary journalism, memoir, or narrative based on travel, science, history, and cultural critique. Submission should be limited to 3,000 words or less; can be a collection of brief pieces or one long piece.
- Winner: Corinne Leong, "The Woman That Loves You"
Barbara Banks Brodsky - English
For the best essay on 20th-century English literature by a junior or senior.
- Winner: Lucia Kan-Sperling, "“The more I observe…”: Defamiliarization and Artificial Intelligence in Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun"
Deadline
Friday, December 1, 2023
Prizes
1st Prize $800
Spring 2024
Preston Gurney Prizes
Fiction
For the best essay of 5,000 words or less on any topic in literary criticism (fiction) by a senior
- 1st Place Winner: Solveig Asplund, “It’s always flowing in a stream, never the same”: Exploring Individualized Male Flow Through Urination, Ejaculation, and Bathing in Ulysses
Poetry
For the best essay of 5,000 words or less on any topic in literary criticism (poetry) by a senior
- 1st Place Winner: Julian Ansorge, “All we know / is that we are a little early:” Arriving Early to Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror”
- 2nd Place Winner: Everest Maya-Tudor, The Multidimensionality of Love in Chaucer’s “The Parliament of Fowls”
Cultural Criticism
For the best essay of 5,000 words or less on any topic in cultural criticism by a senior
- 1st Place Winner: Lucia Kan-Sperling, Contingency, Facticity, and the Productive Potential of the Encounter: Althusser, Daston, Wilson
- 2nd Place Winner: Annie Stein, The Teenybopper Stage: Endless Male Pubescence in Mike Nichols' The Graduate
Deadline
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Prizes
1st Prize $1,000
2nd Prize $500
Betsy Amanda Lehman '77 Memorial Award for Excellence in Journalism
There are two first prizes for this award. One is for print and/or online written journalism and one is for audio/video journalism. Entries for the latter must be accompanied by a written script. Pieces will be judged on the strength of their reporting and writing. You must be a Brown senior to enter. Your submission may include one longer feature or a collection of no more than three shorter pieces. Extensive journalism experience or extensive journalism coursework is not required.
- 1st Place Winner: Noble Brigham (print/online)
- 2nd Place Winner: Nicholas Miller (print/online)
Deadline
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Prizes
1st Prize $1,000
2nd Prize $500
The Casey Shearer Memorial Award for Excellence in Creative Nonfiction
Awarded to a full-time Brown junior or senior for creative nonfiction of 3,000 words or less. Submission can be a collection of brief pieces or one long piece.
- 1st Place Winner: Kathy Wang, A Growing History
- 2nd Place Winner: Yutki V. Agarwal, 26/11
Deadline
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Prizes
1st Prize $1,000
2nd Prize $500
Rules
- One entry per competition. A separate entry form must be completed for each competition.
- Your name should not appear anywhere on the manuscript.
- The university reserves the right to withhold any award.
- Manuscripts will be read by a committee of faculty members in the English Department. The committee's decisions will be final.
- Essays that have previously received an English Department award are not eligible.
No hard copies or late submissions will be accepted.