Six First Wave Scholars Win Madison Creative Writing Scholarship Prizes

*Indicates Recipient is a First Wave Scholar

The Program in Creative Writing at UW-Madison is pleased to announce this year’s undergraduate and graduate scholarship prize recipients. We wish we could be with all of you in person this week, crammed into a room at the Madison Public Library, cheering and clapping, shaking your hands. But it wouldn’t be safe to maintain that tradition in these difficult times.

Regardless, we want you to know how proud we are of each and every one of you—not just those who won prizes, and not just those who submitted, but every student who sat in our classrooms, who logged into Canvas or Blackboard Collaborate or Webex or Zoom, who refused to let COVID-19 stop them from putting words on the page. Whether or not you received an award this year, we hope you’ll remember that your words and your creativity matter.

If you know some of this year’s winners, please take a moment today to reach out to them in whatever way you can, to extend your congratulations. These can be lonely times, and we want to make sure our classmates can hear us cheering, even from miles away.

Charles M. Hart Jr. Writers of Promise Awards

Established in 1993 by Janet Hart and named for her son, who won a George B. Hill Poetry Prize the year before he passed away, the Charles M. Hart Jr. Writers of Promise Awards are meant to encourage emerging writers from our ENGL 207 introductory poetry and fiction workshops. The 28th annual Hart awards were judged by the instructors of those workshops: Gabriella Balza, Adrienne Chung, Miriam Huettner, Alison Thumel, and Ajibola Tolase.

*Jackson Neal — First Place — $500
Kun Lee — Second Place — $300
Lindsay Dolan — Third Place — $200
Julian Davis — Honorable Mention — $100
Phoebe Omuro — Honorable Mention — $100
Mary Poggioli — Honorable Mention — $100

George B. Hill Poetry Prizes

2020 marks the 69th year we’ve awarded the George B. Hill Poetry Prizes, which were created by former Brachs Candy Company president Theodore Stempfel, in memory of his dear friend and former UW-Madison classmate George Bradbury Hill. This year, the awards were judged by Jay C. & Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow Cassandra J. Bruner, Ronald Wallace Poetry Fellow Clemonce Heard, and First Wave Poetry Fellow Natasha Oladokun.

*Nile Lansana — First Place — $1,500
Nina Boals — Second Place — $1,000
*Penda Smith — Third Place — $500
Joseph Cesare — Honorable Mention — $250
Ana Komro — Honorable Mention — $250
Abel Munoz-Barrientos — Honorable Mention — $250
*Jackson Neal — Honorable Mention — $250
Samuel J. Wood — Honorable Mention — $250

Henry Douglas Mackaman Undergraduate Writer’s Award

For five years now, the Henry Douglas Mackaman Undergraduate Writer’s Award has been our largest prize for a single story written by an undergraduate at UW-Madison. The story of Henry Mackaman is both joyous and sad: he was one of UW’s most promising young writers, as well as a guitarist, a lyricist, and a beloved brother and son, who died unexpectedly from bacterial meningitis in 2013. Henry’s family and friends set up this prize in his honor, awarding at least $1,000 every year, in perpetuity. This year, James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow Claire Agnes and Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow Gabriel Louis judged that the fifth annual Mackaman Award should go to:

Erica Gelman — $1,500

Therese Muller Fiction & Creative Nonfiction Prizes

2020 marks the 69th year we’ve awarded the Therese Muller Fiction Prizes, and the very first year we’ve awarded the Therese Muller Nonfiction Prizes. Both were named for a teacher of literature and law, famous francophile, and favorite daughter of Sauk City, who graduated from UW in 1912. Like the Mackaman Award, the Therese Muller Fiction Prizes were judged by James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow Claire Agnes and Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow Gabriel Louis. The Therese Muller Nonfiction Prizes were judged by Professor Porter Shreve.

*Jackson Neal — First Place (F) — $1,000
William Dinnen — Second Place (F) — $500
Josie Brandmeier — Honorable Mention (F) — $250
Emma Liverseed — Honorable Mention (F) — $250
Morgan Mancl — Honorable Mention (F) — $250
Madeline Peterson — Honorable Mention (F) — $250
Elizabeth Wahmhoff — Honorable Mention (F) — $250
Phoebe Smolan — First Place (CNF) — $1,500
*Jackson Neal — Second Place (CNF) — $1,000
Alice Wang — Third Place (CNF) — $500

Ronald Wallace Poetry Thesis Prize

The Ronald Wallace Poetry Thesis Prize is named for and funded by the founder of our program, who spent 43 years of his life establishing UW as one of the foremost undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate creative writing programs in the United States, before his retirement in 2015. In normal years, only one of these prizes is given, but we all know 2020 is not a normal year. To commemorate five years of the Ronald Wallace Poetry Thesis Prize, we have chosen to award a second and third place, as well. First Wave Poetry Fellow Xandria Phillips and Hoffman-Halls Emerging Artist Fellow Wes Holtermann judged this year’s Wallace Prize, as follows:

*Hajjar Baban — First Place — $2,000
*Duncan Slagle — Second Place — $1,000
Joseph Cesare — Third Place — $500

Eudora Welty Fiction Thesis Prize

The Eudora Welty Fiction Thesis Prize was established 30 years ago by Jane Perrin, to honor one of America’s most distinguished and revered fiction writers, whose accolades include a National Book Award, a Pulitzer Prize, a Nobel Prize nomination, and most prestigious of all: a Bachelor of Arts degree from UW-Madison. Since this is an important anniversary not just for the Wallace prize but also for the Welty, we have chosen to award second and third place thesis prizes in fiction, as well. Jay C. and Ruth Halls Fiction Fellow Sean Hammer judged this year’s Eudora Welty Fiction Thesis Prizes, as follows:

*Nesha Ruther — First Place — $2,000
Sonia Santaella — Second Place — $1,000
Emma Liverseed — Third Place — $500

Cy Howard Memorial Scholarship Thesis Prize

The Cy Howard Memorial Scholarship Thesis Prize was established by Barbara Howard, a great friend to UW-Madison’s Program in Creative Writing and the last surviving heir to the Warner Brothers film studio fortune, in honor of her husband Cy, who was a UW graduate and a writer for film and television. The Howard Thesis Prize can go to any genre: fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, screenplays, dramatic monologues… the list goes on. Often, we award the Howard to a thesis that pushes the boundaries of genre itself. This year, the Howard goes to a fiction manuscript, selected by Jay C. and Ruth Halls Fiction Fellow Sean Hammer, Hoffman-Halls Emerging Artist Fellow Wes Holtermann, and First Wave Poetry Fellow Xandria Phillips.

Tori Tiso — $2,000

Richard Knowles & Jerome Stern Teaching Awards

Each year, the Program in Creative Writing celebrates the teaching expertise of its MFA candidates in poetry and fiction, through two prizes. The Richard Knowles Teaching Award is named for Professor Emeritus Dick Knowles, who taught creative writing at UW long before the creative writing program even existed. The Knowles Award acknowledges excellence in the instruction of “ENGL 207: Intro to Creative Writing.” But our MFA candidates also teach composition courses at UW, so in addition to the Knowles Award we also give out the Jerome Stern Teaching Award for excellence in the instruction of ENGL 100, named for a longtime professor, writer, editor, radio personality, bon vivant, and friend to UW. This year, the Creative Writing Steering Committee selected four teaching award recipients, as follows:

Gabriella Balza — Knowles Teaching Award — $500
Alison Thumel — Knowles Teaching Award — $500
James Eberhard — Stern Teaching Award — $500
Kathryn Harlan — Stern Teaching Award — $500

August Derleth Graduate Creative Writing Prize

The Derleth Prize is named for a beloved Wisconsin native who authored hundreds of books comprising every genre imaginable—fiction, poetry, nonfiction, plays, etc.—though August Derleth is perhaps most famous today for being the first book publisher of H. P. Lovecraft. The prize goes to “students demonstrating special interest in Wisconsin regional literature, or one of the other writing genres to which August Derleth contributed.” This year, the prize was judged by Rebecca Hazelton, author of the poetry collections GlossVow, and Fair Copy. Hazelton had the following to say about the winning manuscript: “These poems demonstrate the movements of an analytical mind attuned to the science of feeling. Through systemic investigations, playful use of outlines, and philosophical texts, the difficulty of understanding the self is made clear through lyrics both thoughtful and irreverent.” The Program in Creative Writing is pleased to announce that the winner of this year’s August Derleth Graduate Creative Writing Prize is:

Adrienne Chung, for “The Day You Left, I Remembered” — $2,000

William W. Marr Graduate Prize in Creative Writing

Established four years ago by the family of renowned poet, writer, artist, nuclear engineer, and UW alumnus Dr. William Marr (who publishes under the name Fei Ma), this prize acknowledges excellence among UW-Madison’s MFA candidates in creative writing. This year the prize was judged by novelist Lydia Fitzpatrick, author of Lights All Night Long, who had the following to say about the winning manuscript: “There’s a heartbreaking undertow to this story, which at first seems as aimless as the characters who people it, but it becomes an elegy, an admission. The authority of the details and the intimacy of the images have the transporting pull of the best fiction; they make it impossible to turn away from this harrowing world, and the narrator’s role in creating it.” The Program in Creative Writing is pleased to announce that the winner of this year’s William W. Marr Graduate Scholarship Prize in Creative Writing is:

Sean Hayes, for “Boat Shoes” — $2,000