Program in Creative Writing Honors and Awards

The Margaret C. Annan Memorial Prize

Deadline: April 15, 5:00 pm   Eligibility: Third-year students in the College

Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction Prizes: $1000 each

Established in Ms. Annan's memory by her students, the prize supports three summer writing projects—one each in the genres of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction—and is awarded to third-years / rising fourth-years in recognition of excellence in creative writing and in support of a summer writing project.

Guidelines: Submit a portfolio of approximately 10 double-spaced pages and indicate the genre in your submission. Entry is limited to one genre per student. Email your submissions to matthewhawkins@uchicago.edu. If applying for more than one prize, submit each entry in a separate email. The subject line should contain the name of the prize you are applying for. Within the body of your email, please include: your full name, the name of the prize you are applying for, the title of your entry, your year in the College (i.e., third- or fourth-year), your major, and your University of Chicago email address. Attach an anonymized PDF of your writing sample with the author’s name omitted from all pages.

The David Blair McLaughlin Prizes

Deadline: April 15, 5:00 pm   Eligibility: Fourth-year students in the College

First Prize: $300; Second Prize: $150

Awarded for essays written by students in the graduating class who demonstrate special skill and sense of form in the writing of English prose.

Guidelines: Essays should not exceed 25 pages (double-spaced). Entry limited to one essay per student. Email your submissions to matthewhawkins@uchicago.edu. If applying for more than one prize, submit each entry in a separate email. The subject line should contain the name of the prize you are applying for. Within the body of your email, please include: your full name, the name of the prize you are applying for, the title of your entry, your year in the college (i.e., third- or fourth-year), your major, and your University of Chicago email address. Attach an anonymized PDF of your writing sample with the author’s name omitted from all pages.

The Olga and Paul Menn Foundation Prizes

Deadline: April 15, 5:00 pm   Eligibility: Fourth-year students in the College

First Prize: $1000; Second Prize: $500

Awarded for original short stories or novel extracts written by students in the graduating class.

Guidelines: Novel extracts should include an explanatory preface and should not exceed 25 pages (double-spaced). Entry limited to one short story or novel extract per student. Email your submissions to matthewhawkins@uchicago.edu. If applying for more than one prize, submit each entry in a separate email. The subject line should contain the name of the prize you are applying for. Within the body of your email, please include: your full name, the name of the prize you are applying for, the title of your entry, your year in the college (i.e., third- or fourth-year), your major, and your University of Chicago email address. Attach an anonymized PDF of your writing sample with the author’s name omitted from all pages.

The John Billings Fiske Poetry Prize

Deadline: April 15, 5:00 pm   Eligibility: Fourth-year students in the College

Prize: $500

Awarded for the best original poem or cycle of poems by a student in the graduating class.

Guidelines: Entry limited to a group of six poems, or one poem cycle, per student. Email your submissions to matthewhawkins@uchicago.edu. If applying for more than one prize, submit each entry in a separate email. The subject line should contain the name of the prize you are applying for. Within the body of your email, please include: your full name, the name of the prize you are applying for, the title of your entry, your year in the college (i.e., third- or fourth-year), your major, and your University of Chicago email address. Attach an anonymized PDF of your writing sample with the author’s name omitted from all pages.

Danielle Geller is a writer of personal essays and memoir. Her first book, Dog Flowers (One World/Random House 2021) was a finalist for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes’s Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize and the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes. Her essays have appeared in Maisonneuve, Guernica, The Paris Review Daily, The New Yorker,and Brevity. She teaches creative writing at the University of Victoria.

Maya Marshall is a poet, essayist, and editor. Winner of the 2024 Holmes National Poetry Prize, Marshall is the author of the poetry collection All the Blood Involved in Love (2022) and the chapbook Secondhand (2016). She co-founded underbelly, the journal on the practical magic of poetic revision. A MacDowell, Cave Canem, and Emory University fellow, her work appears in numerous collections and publications including Prose for the People (Penguin Random House, 2025), American Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. She serves as an editor and poetry director for Haymarket Books and as a program consultant for the Writing Freedom Fellowship, a literary fellowship for writers impacted by carceral systems. 

Frances de Pontes Peebles is the author of the novels The Seamstress and The Air You Breathe. Her books have been translated into ten languages. Born in Pernambuco, Brazil, she is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is a Creative Writing Fellow in Literature from The National Endowment for the Arts, and has received a Fulbright grant and Brazil’s Sacatar Fellowship. In 2019, she served as Visiting Associate Professor of Fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her short fiction has appeared in O. Henry Prize Stories, Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, Electric Literature, and Guernica. Her novel, The Seamstress, was adapted for film and mini-series on Brazil’s Globo Network. She is proud to serve as Board Chair of the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. 

Jeannie Vanasco is the author of the memoirs Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl—which was named a New York Times Editors' Choice and a best book of 2019 by TIME, Esquire, Kirkus, among others—and The Glass Eye, which Poets & Writers called one of the five best literary nonfiction debuts of 2017. Her third book, A Silent Treatment, will be published by Tin House in fall 2025. Born and raised in Sandusky, Ohio, she lives in Baltimore and is an associate professor of English at Towson University. 

Les River Fellowship for Young Novelists

Deadline: No application. Candidates will be nominated by faculty each Spring.

Eligibility: College fourth-year students and/or College students in the graduating class

The Les River Fellowship for Young Novelists was established by Dorothy River in 2016 in honor and memory of her husband, W. Leslie River, Ph.B.’25. One Les River Fellowship of $5,000 will be awarded annually to a writer of fiction completing a BA project in Creative Writing, to support the development of a work of fiction towards publication. The expectation is that the Fellowship will enable uninterrupted work or travel for research purposes during the summer after graduation.
 

Elsie Filippi Memorial Prize in Poetry 

Deadline: No application. Candidates will be nominated by faculty each Spring.

Eligibility: College fourth-year students and/or College students in the graduating class 

Presented to a student in the graduating class in the College who shows distinction in poetic composition.

Can I submit something that has already been published elsewhere?

Yes! You may even choose to specify in your application where the piece has already appeared.

The prose piece I am submitting is under the page limit. Should I submit another piece?

You may submit more than one piece to comprise your portfolio, but we recommend that you only do so if you see both pieces cohering in some way or complementing each other to represent your work. If you have one great piece, you should feel free to submit it alone—even if it is under the page limit.

When will I hear back about my submission?

For prizes with an April 15 deadline, winners will be notified in May. For prizes with event-related deadlines, winners will be notified in advance of the event.

I’m not a Creative Writing major or minor. Can I still apply?

Yes! You will want to pay close attention to the eligibility requirements, but students with other majors and minors are welcome to apply.