ANN ARBOR—The University of Michigan’s Hopwood Awards Program awarded $31,990 to students for its fall contests.

The Hopwood Awards are the oldest and most prestigious college writing prizes in the country. A ceremony announcing the awards was held Wednesday at U-M’s Rackham Amphitheater and included a reading by author Raquel Salas Rivera, a poet and winner of the 2018 Ambroggio Prize and the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry.

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. Winners include:

First- and Second-Year Hopwood Awards in Fiction

• Jena Vallina, Romeoville, Ill., “The Doglord,” $1,750
• Kathryn DesLauries, Buchanan, Mich., “In the Woods Somewhere,” $1,500
• Vivian Chiao, Ann Arbor, “Two Stories: While I Was Away and Home with the Fairies,” $1,000

First- and Second- Year Hopwood Awards in Poetry

• Nicole Tooley, Ann Arbor, “Unfamiliar Family Portraits,, $1,500
• Jade Wurst, Commerce Township, Mich., “darkroom,” $1,000
• Olivia Evans, Northville, Mich., “Overwinter,” $1,000
• Destiny Wu, Grand Rapids, Mich., “Letters Home,” $800

First- and Second-Year Hopwood Awards in Nonfiction

• Elizabeth Farmer, Grand Rapids, Mich., “This is not an Amen,” $1,750
• Olivia Evans, Northville, Mich., “Sacraments”|”Brookville”|”Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore”|”Solomon’s Temple,” $1,000
• Brooke Alisabeth Kensington Lange, Greenwich, Conn., “Go Alone, Bodice Ripping and Other Serious Business,” $800

Academy of American Poets

• Michael Weinstein, Boston, “Anniversary,” $100 (Graduate division)
• Lynne Bekdash, Basking Ridge, N.J., “Immigrant Daughter Ghazal,” $100 (Undergraduate division)

The Bain-Swiggett Poetry Prize

• Carlina Duan, Ann Arbor, “Nainai Killed Rats,” $380
• Zoya Gurm, Ann Arbor, “Paper Birch Sonnet,” $380

The Michael R. Gutterman Award

• Bryan Byrdlong, Chicago, Ill., “Still Life: ‘blǽknes,'” $600
• Miriam Saperstein, Huntington Woods, Mich., “control,” $550

The Marjorie Rapaport Award in Poetry

• Smitty Smith, Detroit, “twilight,” $800
• Benjamin Glass, Huntington Woods, Mich., “October Sonnet,” $600

The Jeffrey L. Weisberg Memorial Award

• Hiba Dagher, Dearborn, Mich., “35 MM with Two Grandfathers,” $1,000
• Julia Freeman, Irvine, Calif., “Trying to watch anime while my brother fights through chemo,” $800

Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship

• Drew Allyn Metcalf, Southfield, Mich., “No More Monsters,” $3,500
• Matt Harmon, Royal Oak, Mich., “Exhibits in a Zoo,” $3,500
• Mylicia Williams, Ann Arbor, “the birds are running away from me,” $2,500
• Grace Toll, Jackson, Mich., “Coruscate,” $2,500
• Emily Russell, Columbus, Mich., “BEAT,” $1,000
• Dylan Gilbert, Ann Arbor, “On black girls and brooks,” $700

The Roy and Helen Meador Writing Award

• Jena Vallina, Romeoville, Ill., “The Doglord,” $980

More information:

• Hopwood Awards Program