Department of English
Recent Prize Recipients
Fall 2025 · 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: Cecilia Hult
Entry Title: “The Impossibility of Adulthood in Flannery O’Connor’s The River.”
Rose Low Rome Prize
For the best poem or poems by a currently enrolled Brown undergraduate.
1st place: Lucas Friedman-Spring
Entry Title: Heat and Shade
2nd place: Elaine Rand
Entry Title: Then and Now, Lockjaw, In the subconscious landscape of another's dream, Everything the Lightning Touches, or How to Greet a Memory
Fall 2025 · 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: Naya Melvani
Entry Title: Someday We May Fly
Arlene Rome Ten Eyck & Peter H. Ten Eyck Prize
For the best essay on literary theory by a currently enrolled Brown undergraduate.
1st place: Rishabh Rao
Entry Title: Bakhtin on Beauty: Dialogical Ideas of the Idea in Contemporary British Fiction
2nd place: Clara Baisinger-Rosen
Entry Title: Blank Page Against the Machine: The Ways of the Writerly Text
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: Noa Brown
Entry Title: Gestation
2nd place: Kate Rowberry
Entry Title: Eureka in an Empty Bathtub
Spring 2024 · 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:
Noble Brigham
2nd place:
Nicholas Miller
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:
Siqi (Kathy) Wang, A Growing History
2nd place:
Yutki Agarwal, 26:11
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