The Creative Writing Program awards a number of prizes annually to University of Pennsylvania students. See below for our most recent prize winners; previous winners are listed at the bottom of this page. Details on our 2025 prizes and how to submit work will be available on our website in early 2025.
Congratulations to the 2024 recipients of the Creative Writing Prizes:
The Peregrine Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets
Awarded to the best poetry by a graduate student.
Winner: Christos Kalli
Contest judge Syd Zolf writes: Whimsical, inventive, playful, yet with sharp “infrastructural intent,” Kalli’s poems make judicious use of the body of the speaker and the body of the page, “Following each line towards the / almost-light entering through the keyhole.” Kalli writes that “Poets ask / nothing / about language”, yet this poet leaves “mouth-shaped holes[s]” on the page that let the light and something else in.
About the judge: Syd Zolf has published six books of poetry and a book of poetics/theory. Their work has received a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and a Trillium Book Award for Poetry and has been a finalist for several other prizes, including two Lambda Literary Awards. Films Zolf has written and/or directed have shown internationally at venues such as White Cube Bermondsey, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. They have received more than thirty poetry, film, creative nonfiction, and academic research grants and fellowships from institutions including the Leeway Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Zolf teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.
The College Alumni Society Poetry Prize
Awarded to the best poetry by an undergraduate student.
Winner: Samantha Hsiung
Contest judge Syd Zolf writes: Hsiung writes “a lexicon of violence” with “razor-bladed” poems fast “becoming / what this nation bears.” Mastering a wide range of tones and poetic forms in a few short pages, Hsiung “inherits” complex “geometries” of grief and “unbudded” survival that keep fractalling and “spitting out every / seed it cannot hold” long after the white page and black ink bits pass away.
Second Place: Richard Liu
Contest judge Syd Zolf writes: Liu’s use of parataxis produces surreal, whimsical, cheeky, loving poems that “slipped like fuselage through my mind.” While “God is / Climbing up your walls,” the poems keep chirping: “What is ontology anyways?” Happily dwelling in Liu’s smart and pleasurable pages, “we are here and maybe home.”
Third Place: Zoe Lachter
Contest judge Syd Zolf writes: Lachter exhibits a confident grasp of the lyrical image and line, while pushing the poem into refreshingly queer and multilingual forms of multifaceted expression.
Honorable Mention: Katherine Wei, Nikhil Kathiresan, Sheehwa You, Tyler Kliem, Sophia Hall
About the judge: Syd Zolf has published six books of poetry and a book of poetics/theory. Their work has received a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and a Trillium Book Award for Poetry and has been a finalist for several other prizes, including two Lambda Literary Awards. Films Zolf has written and/or directed have shown internationally at venues such as White Cube Bermondsey, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. They have received more than thirty poetry, film, creative nonfiction, and academic research grants and fellowships from institutions including the Leeway Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Zolf teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Lilian and Benjamin Levy Award
Awarded to the best review by an undergraduate of a current play, film, music release, book, or performance.
Winner: Lila Dubois, “The Sad and Simple Truth of Priscilla’s Priscilla”
Contest judge Taije Silverman writes: This review contrasts the visceral satisfaction of going to the movies with the not-always-as-satisfactory experience of what we see there. Contextualizing Sophia Coppola’s Priscilla within our current moment’s trend of glitter feminism, Lila Dubois punctures expectations of glamour to describe an anti-redemptive biopic about a teenage girl who doesn’t get to become more. With generosity and insight, she explains how Coppola’s “surface-centric style” refuses the interiority of a fourteen-year-old who is first wooed by and then sacrificed to the ruin of Elvis. “Not every sad story deserves a feature length film,” Dubois writes, noting how the crowd (gorgeously described before the film begins as “a fog of girldom,” with eyeliner drawn like “thick, dark wings for watery marbles”) seems somehow deflated once the lights come up, as bouffants sag and makeup looks “less playful than cakey.” Dubois has convinced me that Coppola’s film about Priscilla Presley is neither redemptive nor particularly interesting. Her own review of the film is both.
Second Place: Gemma Hong, “Memory, Media, and Manipulation: Lessons in Looking from Michael Haneke's Caché”
Contest judge Taije Silverman writes: Gemma Hong’s elegantly written review of Michael Haneke’s 2005 French film Caché makes me want to watch it. Hong’s observations are as detailed as they are compelling, and they cover real ground—from the title’s doubled meaning to the cinematic symbolism of scenes in which the protagonist’s bookshelves replace windows. I was fascinated to learn about the 1961 Paris massacre of French Algerians, an event underpinning the film. Issues of colonialism, complicity, and the metastasization of guilt are raised intelligently and with nuance, and Hong’s thorough elaboration of the plot consistently furthered my interest.
Third Place: Arina Paniukhina, “‘Inexperienced But Enthusiastic Amateur’ Revives Marlene Marder from Kleenex/LiLiPUT for English Speakers”
Contest judge Taije Silverman writes: Paniukhina recounts the trajectory of 80s punk rocker Marlene Marder’s journals about the European punk scene, and their recent re-publication through the efforts of fan Grace Ambrose. Smartly narrated look at journey of a diary.
About the judge: Taije Silverman’s second book of poetry, Now You Can Join the Others, was published in 2022. Her translations of Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli were published in 2019 and shortlisted for the Florio Prize. She is faculty advisor for DoubleSpeak.
The Phi Kappa Sigma Fiction Prize
Awarded to the best original short story by an undergraduate.
Winner: Katrina Itona, “Saltwater”
Contest judge Abbey Mei Otis writes: Itona’s language is propelled by ambition, leaping from the mundane to the surreal in a single sentence. In eleven pages the story deftly encompasses a young woman’s entire coming-of-age. The metaphor of the mermaid hums under the surface, always threatening to break through the skin of reality. Intertwining the mundane and the fantastic allows her to reveal an otherworldly horror pulsing at the heart of being female-bodied, of being tied by family and class and gender to a life outside one’s choosing, and of what it takes to struggle, despite circumstance, toward transformation.
Second Place: Sophie Young, “Tennis at the End of the World”
Contest judge Abbey Mei Otis writes: I was struck by the confidence of Young’s writing, the technical bravado it takes to tell an apocalypse story that is hilarious and inventive and compassionate all at once. The entire story takes place on a tennis court, and yet every scene ricochets into a new genre, takes command of the tropes, and lobs us somewhere unexpected. My nagging thought the whole time was: but will Young pull off the ending? and Young does, and it’s perfect in that impossible-to-foresee-and-yet totally-inevitable way.
Third Place: Yiwei Liu, “You/Sound of the End of the World”
Contest judge Abbey Mei Otis writes: Liu’s story takes us into a dreamy, grimy, neon-lit world that is breathtakingly distant from the typical college-student milieu, or indeed from anywhere recognizable on earth. A single night at a mysterious cabaret performance sends the narrator on a nightmarish journey of self-examination and metamorphosis. Liu’s sentences tear open the English language and reveal possibilities startling, new and precise. This is a story of sensation and mood, and I traveled through it feeling simultaneously unsettled, disoriented, impressed, and hungry for more.
Honorable Mention: Sherice Kong, Tsubasa Somasundaram Inada, Alex Behm
About the judge: Abbey Mei Otis’s story collection, Alien Virus Love Disaster (Small Beer Press) was named one of the best science fiction books of the year by The Washington Post and was a finalist for the 2018 Philip K Dick Award. Her short fiction has recently shown up in McSweeney's, Tin House, Guernica, and the Magic: The Gathering website. She studied creative writing at the Michener Center for Writers, Oberlin College, and the Clarion West Writers Workshop.
Judge's note: “I was looking, in this contest, for stories that announced their ambitions in the opening paragraph, and then followed through on their promises all the way. I wanted writing that felt not just skillful, but daring and playful and a little feral. Both the winners and the honorable mentions blew up my expectations of what a ‘college story’ can be about and brought my awareness sharply to both the state of the world and my own tenuous place in it.”
The Judy Lee Award for Dramatic Writing
Awarded to a graduate or undergraduate student for the best script of any length.
Winner: Crystal Marshall, “Good Grief”
Contest judge Yoni Brook writes: A mother-and-daughter road-trip script that is ostensibly about death and mourning, yet shows how our intergenerational bonds keep us alive. Vivian and her mother Shelly-Anne clash, but find themselves together in an adventure that forces them to redefine their relationship. “You got us lost, so I will paddle us back.” With detailed visual storytelling, like an awkward ackee and saltfish cooking class, these characters are so nuanced that actors will be eager to bring them to life, and audiences will be invested in seeing them come home.
Second Place: Paola Camacho, “Fruit Cove”
Contest judge Yoni Brook writes: This feature script transforms Paola's coming-of-age story into a window into the Martinez family. Its characters are sketched with idiosyncrasies that make them real, and a perspective that shifts between high school cliques and immigrant communities. It’s a universal story of teenage yearning, rooted in the specifics of America in 2024. “In any language you choose, I just want to talk to you again.”
Third Place: Sophia Hall, “Boy with Pearl Earring / Prom Night”
Contest judge Yoni Brook writes: A photograph transforms into an anthropomorphic scene between its elements in this imaginative play. “Picture me on the dance floor, swaying to the music. A corsage of peonies on my wrist, my silk dress falling to my ankles, my hair spilling down my back.” Its staging will delight audiences.
Honorable Mention: Andar Naseebullah, “Beneath the Phoenix Wings”
Contest judge Yoni Brook writes: The script reveals that an encounter between two strangers can be much more. “Allow me a moment to bid farewell to all the lightness, the ethereal lightness that was once mine.” Its evocative language and narrative flow leaves the reader curious for more.
About the judge: Yoni Brook is a Peabody Award winning film director, producer, and cinematographer. As a director, his credits include the docuseries PHILLY D.A. (PBS/Topic, duPont-Columbia Award Winner, Gotham Award Winner). Other films screened at the Berlinale, True/False, and the New York and Toronto Film Festivals. As a Film Independent Spirit Award nominated cinematographer, his credits include MENASHE (A24, Sundance) and VALLEY OF SAINTS (Sundance World Dramatic Audience Award Winner). Brook is an alumnus of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and served as a visiting instructor at Swarthmore College’s Department of Film and Media Studies.
The Gibson Peacock Prize for Creative Nonfiction
Awarded to the best creative nonfiction piece—memoir or essay—by an undergraduate student.
Winner: Sandra Lin, “stop”
Contest judge Piyali Bhattacharya writes: This is a beautiful piece that has a deep understanding of image, and how image in creative writing can be used to talk about so many things: translucency, transcendency, daughterhood, race. What it means to be an American, a woman, a counter of the bodies. How color and light and slash and brilliance slice against each other when we're talking about oranges, when we're talking about lies.
Second Place: Harshita Gupta, “The World”
Contest judge Piyali Bhattacharya writes: The haunting first lines of this piece are enough to stop anybody in their tracks. The first page itself is a standalone essay, and from there, the piece goes on to unspool so many more essays. From the richness of this metaphorically told multiplicity, we see where the author's commitments hold, and where, as we all must do, she allows them to fray.
Third Place: Lila Dubois, “The Slugs”
Contest judge Piyali Bhattacharya writes: This is a piece that understands the ties that bind us, and the ties that don't. A young person's vividly described memories of slugs, salt, and hot summer evenings gives us an insight into the cycle of life and death as it is understood by children, which is perhaps more than it is understood by anyone else.
About the judge: Piyali Bhattacharya is a fiction and nonfiction writer. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, Literary Hub, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic and elsewhere. She is the editor of the anthology Good Girls Marry Doctors: South Asian American Daughters on Obedience and Rebellion, which won the Independent Publisher Book Award and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. At Penn, she is the Abrams Artist-in-Residence and has won the Beltran Family Award for Innovative Teaching and Mentoring.
The Parker Prize for Journalistic Writing
Awarded to the best news article, exposé, investigative work, or reported essay by an undergraduate.
Winner: Hannah Sung and Jules Lingenfelter, “Donors Rule Everything Around Me: When money talks, professors are silenced.”
Contest judge Lise Funderburg writes: In their expansive current affairs feature about academic freedom and free speech, Sung and Lingenfelter take on one of the most concerning and complex issues facing college campuses today. They succinctly convey the heart of the matter — “The combined effect of recent turmoil on Penn’s campus and pressure from donors has mounted fears for academic freedom inside and outside the classroom” — and they support their claim with diligent reportage, starting with the dismissal of Penn Professor Scott Nearing in 1915, a popular instructor they report as being let go for his “anti–Capitalist sentiments and advocating for child labor laws.” The Nearing anecdote is enlisted as a stunning frame for pointing out that a century later, “the state of academic freedom at Penn remains tenuous.” To portray the landscape of the controversy, Sung and Lingenfelter have gone to truly impressive lengths, turning to a wide range of sources and recent events that convincingly lead the reader to their closing statement, a call to (intellectual) arms: “The integrity of academic freedom,” they write, “is not for sale.”
Second Place: Katie Bartlett, “The Cowboys of Fletcher Street”
Contest judge Lise Funderburg writes: Bartlett’s cinematic approach is pitch perfect for a double profile in which she tells the story of Philadelphia’s legendary Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club and its founder, Ellis Ferrell. Ferrell’s mission is to keep kids busy; as he tells Bartlett, “These are great kids who need a space to put their energy. I want to provide that space.” Bartlett stays close to the action, following the interplay between Ferrell, his young acolytes, and the horses themselves as they create an oasis of care, dedication, and pleasure in the midst of a tough city. Even though he’s now in his mid-80s, Ferrell is clearly still at the helm. “Known among club members as ‘El Dog,’ he greets the boys from a leather chair by the gate. That chair, when occupied by Ferrell, is a throne.” Through multiple interviews, statistics, and rich scene work, including a group ride through Strawberry Mansion streets and into Fairmount Park, Bartlett brings the reader fully and joyfully into this world of urban equestrians.
Third Place: Lila Dubois “The Mysterious Case of Jazz Demographics in Philadelphia: As the genre ages, it’s only getting younger”
Contest judge Lise Funderburg writes: In this textured, vibrant trend piece, Dubois’ evocative imagery invites readers to consider the future of a legendary musical form. Dubois takes on Philadelphia’s jazz scene, opening with a rainy Saturday night in the 34-year-old Philadelphia stronghold, Chris’s Jazz Café, where she finds “a mixture of wet coats, wet hair and half-full vodka tonics, all condensated and stewing in the heat of close bodies and a thermostat set to spare no expense.” As she considers the regional music scene and its history, she highlights a new generation of enthusiast, those in the audience as well as on the stage who are there to “just let it roll.”
About the judge: Lise Funderburg is the author of Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home, a contemplation of life, death, race, and barbecue, as well as the groundbreaking oral history Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity. Her latest books are Apple, Tree: Writers on Their Parents, a collection of 25 original essays she commissioned and edited, and Purple Rising, an illustrated oral history about the diasporic 40-year reach of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Funderburg’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, Chattahoochee Review, Cleaver, Broad Street, National Geographic.
Past Contest Winners
2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001