2010s Annual Writing Prizes
2010
Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize
Paul Stebleton
“Cutting the Cord or Leaving Factory”
Paul Somers Prize for Creative Prose
James Marlow, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
“First Vision of Baseball”
David Diamond Student Writing Prize
Andy Oler, Indiana University
“‘Accentuated by the Wavering Uncertain Light’: Sherwood Anderson’s Construction of Rural Modernity”
2011
Jill Barnum Midwestern Heritage Prize for Literary Criticism
No prize was awarded this year. In 2012, this will be renamed the David D. Anderson Prize for Literary Criticism.
Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize
Christian P. Knoeller, Purdue University
“Open Tuning”
Paul Somers Prize for Creative Prose
David Schock
“A Bride of the Great War”
David Diamond Student Writing Prize
Scott Michael Atkinson, University of Michigan-Flint
“Old Blue Hat”
2012
David D. Anderson Midwestern Heritage Prize for Literary Criticism
Alex Engebretson, CUNY Graduate Center
“Midwestern Mysticism: The Place of Religion in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead”
Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize
Mary Minock, Madonna University
“Georgia Plates”
Paul Sommers Prize for Creative Prose
was not awarded this year
David Diamond Student Writing Prize
Michelle M. Campbell, Central Michigan University
“The Freedom to Try: Voltairine de Cleyre in Postmodern Pedagogy”
2013
David D. Anderson Midwestern Heritage Prize for Literary Criticism
Patricia Oman, Hastings College
“The Moving Was Over and Done: The Professor’s House and Middle America”
Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize
Mary Catherine Harper, Defiance College
“Muddy World”
David Diamond Student Writing Prize
Rachael Price, University of Arkansas
“To Honor a Man: The Decline of Hegemonic Masculinity in Henry Bellamann’s Kings Row”
Paul Sommers Prize for Creative Prose
No prize was awarded this year.
2014
David Diamond Student Writing Prize
Ross K. Tangedal, Kent State University
“Designed to Amuse: The Torrents of Spring and Hemingway’s Intertextual Comedy”
Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize
Qiana Towns, Davenport University
“Social Regard”
David D. Anderson Midwestern Heritage Prize for Literary Criticism
This prize was not awarded this year.
Paul Somers Prize for Creative Prose
The prize was not awarded this year.
2015
David D. Anderson Midwestern Heritage Prize for Literary Criticism
No prize was awarded this year because there were not enough entries to the contest.
Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize
Mary Minock, Madonna University
“If You Loved Me Half as Much as I Love You Vernor Highway, Detroit, 1962”
Paul Somers Prize for Creative Prose
Douglas Sheldon, DePaul University
“Leather and Wool”
David Diamond Student Writing Prize
No prize was awarded this year because there were not enough entries to the contest.
2016
David D. Anderson Midwestern Heritage Prize for Literary Criticism
No prize was awarded this year.
Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize
John Beall
“Self-Portrait”
Paul Somers Prize for Creative Prose
Jane Carman
“Where Am I Who”
David Diamond Student Writing Prize
No prize was awarded this year.
2017
David D. Anderson Midwestern Heritage Prize for Literary Criticism (to be renamed in honor of James Seaton in 2018)
Guy Szuberla, University of Toledo
“George Ade and Essanay Films: Cruel or Unusual Comedy?”
Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize
John Beall, Collegiate School
“November 22, 1963: The Dallas Morning News”
Paul Somers Prize for Creative Prose
No prize awarded this year.
David Diamond Student Writing Prize
Michele R. Willman, University of North Dakota
“Drowning"
2018
James Seaton Midwestern Heritage Prize for Literary Criticism
No winner was selected because there were not enough entries.
Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize
Mary Catherine Harper, Defiance College, Defiance, Ohio
“Imagining Life as a Graffiti Artist”
Paul Somers Creative Prose Prize
Jane Holwerda, Dodge City Community College, Dodge City, Kansas
“Vanishing Point”
David Diamond Student Writing Prize
Lucie Jammes, University of Toulouse-Jean Jaures
“Looking Back: The Orphic Quest of the Narrator in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried”
2019
James Seaton Midwestern Heritage Prize for Literary Criticism
No winner was selected because there were not enough entries.
Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize
Edward Morin, College of Creative Studies, Detroit
“Aerial Combat (For Camille)”
Paul Somers Creative Prose Prize
Michele Willman, University of Minnesota, Crookston
“Pink”
David Diamond Student Writing Prize
Carla Barger, University of Illinois at Chicago
“Witness”
