Winter Hopwood winners announced

The University recently announced the winners of the winter term annual Avery and Jule Hopwood Awards in Creative Writing.

Hopwood program director Nicholas Delbanco (left) presents the Roy W. Cowden Fellowship Award to Derek Lee, a second-year Master of Fine Arts (MFA) candidate. (Photo by Marcia Ledford, U-M Photo Services)

The awards are among the nation's oldest contests for student writers. They are funded by a bequest from Avery Hopwood, a 1905 U-M graduate and successful Broadway playwright, and Jule Hopwood, his mother. Past student winners who have gone on to literary greatness include Arthur Miller, John Ciardi and Marge Piercy.

Avery Hopwood was one of the most commercially successful playwrights on Broadway from 1910 to the late 1920s, considered by some to be the Neal Simon of his era. After he died in 1928, the Phi Beta Kappa graduate left a large bequest to his alma matter stipulating that the proceeds be used to help student writers.

The winners from Ann Arbor are: Natalie Bakopoulos, $1,000, Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship; and Derek Lee, $1,300, Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship.

The winners from Michigan are: Double winner Amber Jewell Bard of Battle Creek, $1,250, Hopwood Underclassmen Essay, and $1,000, Hopwood Underclassmen Fiction; Marshall W. Lee of Birmingham, $500, Hopwood Underclassmen Poetry; Joe Villella of Clarkston, $900, Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship; Sarah Rubin of Howell, $1,400, Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship; Elizabeth Ann Schmuhl of St. Joseph, $800, Hopwood Underclassmen Poetry; Zach Hoskins of Williamston, $450, Jeffrey L. Weisberg Memorial Prize in Poetry.

Poet Carolyn Forché reads from her work at the Hopwood ceremony. (Photo by Marcia Ledford, U-M Photo Services)

Out-of-state winners are: Lucy Biederman of Chicago, $450, Bain-Swiggett Poetry Prize; double winner Karl Stampfl of LaGrange, Ill., $1,500, Hopwood Underclassmen Essay, and $500, Hopwood Underclassmen Fiction; Juliana Breines of Auburndale, Mass., $100, the Academy of American Poets Prize-Undergraduate Division; Allison Daugherty of St. Louis, $800, Hopwood Underclassmen Fiction; Joseph M. Kilduff of Hicksville, N.Y., $1,300, Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship; Celeste Ng of Shaker Heights, Ohio, $1,500, the Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship; Derek C. Mong of Brecksville, Ohio, $350, the Michael R. Gutterman Award in Poetry; Courtney Mandryk of State College, Pa., $300, Michael R. Gutterman Award in Poetry; double winner Evan McGarvey of Providence, R.I., $1,500, Hopwood Underclassmen Poetry, and $550, Jeffrey L. Weisberg Memorial Prize in Poetry; Britta Ameel of Salt Lake City, $900, Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship; Jennifer Wright of Burke, Va., $800, Hopwood Underclassmen Fiction; double winner Charlotte Boulay of Norfolk, Va., $1,400, Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship, and $100, The Academy of American Poets Prize.

For more information on the Hopwood Program, visit http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/hopwood/hopwood.htm.