U-M creative writing students receive Hopwood Awards

January 27, 2016
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ANN ARBOR—The University of Michigan’s Hopwood Awards Program awarded nearly $29,000 to its fall creative writing winners in the Avery and Jule Hopwood Underclassmen Contest.

The Hopwood Awards are the oldest and most prestigious college writing prizes in the country. A ceremony announcing the awards was held this week at U-M’s Rackham Amphitheatre after a reading by four-time Hopwood winner Marge Piercy, who has written 17 novels including “Gone to Soldiers” and “He, She and It,” and 19 volumes of poetry, most recently “Made in Detroit,” and a memoir, “Sleeping with Cats.”

Winners include:

Hopwood Fiction

  • Paige Mittenthal, a class of 2018 LSA student from Scarsdale, N.Y., for “Two Short Stories, “$800.
  • Maxim Vinogradov, a class of 2019 LSA student from West Bloomfield, Mich., for “Vodka Pineapple,” $1,500.
  • Kate Velguth, a class of 2019 LSA English major from Mt. Pleasant, Mich., for “To Your Scattered Bodies Go” and “Witness,” $2,000.

Hopwood Nonfiction

  • Lily Buday, a class of 2018 Residential College Creative Writing and Literature major from Harbor Springs, Mich., for “Redefinition/Footfalls,” $1,000.
  • Tierra Christian, a class of 2018 LSA student from Southfield, Mich., for “Two Essays,” $1,500.
  • Courtney Cook, a class of 2018 Residential College Creative Writing major from Winnetka, Ill., for “Born Fighter,” $1,750.

Hopwood Poetry

  • Sam Johnson, a class of 2018 Residential College Creative Writing and Literature and Biopsychology, Cognition and Neuroscience major from Ludington, Mich., for “Tinders Melting Wax,” $800.
  • Bree Peilen, a class of 2018 LSA English major from St. Paul, Minn., for “Project Mayhem: Down the Rabbit Hole,” $800.
  • Caroline Rothrock, a class of 2019 Residential College English major from Alpharetta, Ga., for “Noble Rot,” $2,000.

Academy of American Poetry Prize

  • Kayla Krut, a 2016 MFA student in the Helen Zell Writers’ Program from Ann Arbor, for “Female Figure,” $100. (Graduate Division)
  • Paulina Adams, a class of 2019 LSA student from Ann Arbor, for “my coat,” $100. (Undergraduate Division)

Bain-Swiggett Poetry Prize

  • Amanda Rybin Koob, a 2016 MFA student in the Helen Zell Writers’ Program from Ypsilanti, Mich., for “Radium Girls,” $625.

Michael R. Gutterman Award in Poetry

  • Warner James Wood, a 2016 MFA student in the Helen Zell Writers’ Program from Blue Ridge, Ga., for “Say You’re a Preservationist,” $500.
  • Danez Smith, a 2017 MFA student in the Helen Zell Writers’ Program from Ann Arbor, for “American Ritual #1,” $750.

Jeffrey L. Weisberg Memorial Prize in Poetry

  • Kate Velguth, a class of 2019 LSA English major from Mt. Pleasant, Mich., for “Astronaut,” $700.
  • Paulina Adams, a class of 2019 LSA student from Ann Arbor, for “when they find his body floating like driftwood they say,” $900.

Roy and Helen Meador Writing Award

  • Lily Buday, a class of 2018 Residential College Creative Writing and Literature major from Harbor Springs, Mich., for “Redefinition/Footfalls,” $900.

Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship

  • Samuel Hamashima, a class 2018 School of Music, Theatre & Dance Musical Theatre major from Cary, N.C., for “Demons Build a House,” $3,000.
  • Bennet Johnson, a class of 2016 LSA English major from Ann Arbor, for “Lunacy,” $3,000.
  • Hannah Klemkow, a class of 2017 LSA English major from Flint, Mich., for “Growing Season,” $3,000.
  • Skyler Tarnas, a class of 2017 LSA English major from West Bloomfield, Mich., for “Deranged Radical Feminist Brutally Attacks Well-Wisher,” $3,000.

The awards are supported by a bequest from Avery Hopwood, a 1905 U-M graduate who was the most commercially successful Broadway playwright of the 1920s, and Jule Hopwood, his mother.