Department of English
Recent Prize Recipients
Spring 2024 · Nonfiction
Spring 2023 Literature
The Preston Gurney Literary Prize in Fiction
For the best essay of 5,000 words or less on any topic in literary criticism (fiction) by a senior.
1st place:
Charlotte Marcil, Pathologizing and Policing Desire: Nella Larsen on the Psycho-Politics of Racial Uplift
2nd place:
Benjamin Balint-Kurti, Exchange Anxiety: Disavowal and Economic Logic in Dickens' Great Expectations
The Preston Gurney Literary Prize in Cultural Criticism
For the best essay of 5,000 words or less on any topic in cultural criticism by a senior.
1st place:
Karlos Bautista, Marcel Proust's Imaginary Interplay
2nd place:
Hiroaki Cho, Hearing the Call of Blackness: Resoluteness in Frantz Fanon's "Black Skin, White Masks"
The Preston Gurney Literary Prize in Poetry
For the best essay of 5,000 words or less on any topic in literary criticism (poetry) by a senior.
1st place:
Mia Freund, The Problem with Pleasure
2nd place:
Andrew Simpson, Binsey Poplars and Ecological Reciprocity
Spring 2023 · Nonfiction
The Betsy Amanda Lehman '77 Memorial Award for Excellence in Journalism
Awarded to a Brown senior studying journalism or practicing as a journalist for a campus or professional publication who has demonstrated outstanding accomplishments and intellectual ability.
The portfolio may include selected publications and/or academic work in the study of journalism, including essays written for Brown classes and senior theses.
1st place:
Gaya Gupta
2nd place:
Benjamin Glickman
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:
Yuzhen Zou, Grandmother
2nd place:
Caelyn Pender, Mary Elizabeth's Box
URSA
We are introducing URSA, a digital magazine featuring our recent prize recipients.
Fall 2022 · Literature
Barbara Banks Brodsky Prize in English
For the best essay on 20th-century literature in English by a full-time junior or senior enrolled at Brown.
Winner: Lucia Kan-Sperling
Prize: $800
Entry Title: “Ambient Poetics and the Sublime in Tan Lin's A Field Guide to American Painting"
Rose Low Rome Prize
For the best poem or poems by a currently enrolled Brown undergraduate.
1st place: Liliana Greyf
Prize: $150
Entry Title: Advice
2nd place: Evan Donnachie
Prize: $50
Entry Title: Poem for Lichens
Fall 2022 · Nonfiction
Barbara Banks Brodsky Prize for Excellence in Real World Writing
Awarded to a full-time junior or senior enrolled at Brown. Submission may come from the spectrum of nonfiction: literary journalism, memoir, or narrative based on travel, science, history, or cultural critique. Submission of a brief essay or one longer essay should be limited to 3,000 words.
Winner: Eliza Berman
Prize: $800
Entry Title: Inertia
Arlene Rome Ten Eyck & Peter H. Ten Eyck Prize
For the best essay on literary theory by a currently enrolled Brown undergraduate.
1st place: Karlos Bautista
Prize: $150
Entry Title: Mont Blanc and the Shadowy Sublimity of the Mind
2nd place: Jack Walker
Prize: $50
Entry Title: We of the World Gone Wild
David Rome Prize
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: Dylan Ines
Prize: $150
Entry Title: Body
2nd place: Allison Chang
Prize: $50
Entry Title: The Water Lillies