ANN ARBOR—Twenty-four University of Michigan students received $26,550 in writing prizes in the Hopwood Underclassmen Contest and other contests administered by the Hopwood Awards Program.

With the prizes, the legacy of Avery Hopwood, a 1905 U-M graduate and the most successful Broadway playwright of the 1920s, continues to grow.

The Hopwood Underclassmen Contest awarded $12,850 to 11 students in a Jan. 30 ceremony in the Rackham Amphitheatre. Another $13,700 was awarded in other contests administered by the Hopwood program: the Academy of American Poets Prize, Bain-Swiggett Poetry Prize, Michael R. Gutterman Award in Poetry, Jeffrey L. Weisberg Memorial Prize in Poetry and the Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship.

The winners from Michigan are:

Hayley Berkshire of Grand Rapids, $600, Hopwood Underclassmen Poetry.

Keilor Kastella of Gregory, $1,500, Hopwood Underclassmen Poetry.

Lauren Keils of Huntington Woods, $600, Hopwood Underclassmen Poetry.

Jennifer Leija of St. Clair Shores, $1,250, Hopwood Underclassmen Poetry.

Shaelyn Smith of West Branch, $1,250, Hopwood Underclassmen Poetry.

Jessica Vosgerchian of Westland, $1,250, Hopwood Underclassmen Nonfiction.

Lauren Walbridge of Kalamazoo, $800, Hopwood Underclassmen Fiction.

Erica Krutsch of Warren, $2,000, Roy Cowden Memorial Fellowship.

James Dean Menter Jr. of Sturgis, $1,000, Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship.

Erin Schlitts of Traverse City, $1,000, Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship.

Melissa Shook of Grosse Pointe Farms, $1,500, Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship.

Natasha Stagg of Grand Rapids, $1,000, Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship.

Noelle Williams of Lake Odessa, $2,500, Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship.

Audra Puchalski of Rochester Hills, $500, Jeffrey L. Weisberg Memorial Prize in Poetry.

Chris Pruitt of Ypsilanti, $350, Michael R. Gutterman Award in Poetry.

Cyan James of Ann Arbor, $550, Bain-Swiggett Poetry Prize.

K.C. Trommer of Ann Arbor, $100, Academy of American Poets?Graduate Division.

The winners from outside Michigan are:

Beenish Ahmed of Perrysburg, Ohio, triple winner: $1,000, Hopwood Underclassmen Nonfiction; $1,000, Hopwood Underclassmen Poetry and $650, the Jeffrey L. Weisberg Memorial Prize in Poetry.

Xiaoqian Donica Liu of Chesterfield, Mo., $600, Hopwood Underclassmen Nonfiction.

Clare Smith Marash of New York, N.Y., $1,500, Hopwood Underclassmen Fiction.

Rebecca Shafer of Evanston, Ill., $1,500, Hopwood Underclassmen Fiction.

Nithya Marie Joseph of Bangalore, India, $2,000, Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship.

Michelle Brown of Washington, D.C., $450, Michael R. Gutterman Award in Poetry.

Evan Briggs McGarvey of Providence, R.I., $100, Academy of American Poets?Undergraduate Division.

The 75-year-old program has awarded more than 3,000 prizes totaling over $2.1 million. Past winners have included Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller, who won his Hopwoods in the 1930, and current bestselling author Elizabeth Kostova.

Information on the Hopwood Program