by Jared Wadley
On April 20, the University of Michigan announced the winners of the Avery and Jule Hopwood Awards during the 2017 Graduate and Undergraduate Hopwood Awards Ceremony at Rackham Auditorium.
The awards are funded by a bequest from Avery Hopwood, a 1905 graduate and successful Broadway playwright, and Jule Hopwood, his mother. Past winners include Arthur Miller, Frank O’Hara, John Ciardi and Marge Piercy.
Of the 62 winners announced, 10 of those who took home prizes and prize money are from Ann Arbor. Those ten writers collected a total of $48,300 in prize money with the largest single prize, $6,500, going to Sofia Fall in the Hopwood Undergraduate Poetry competition. Ms. Fall won a total of $9,500 in prizes for her poetry. Fellow Ann Arborites Graham Cotten, a graduate student in the U-M MFA program, and Owen Dawson, from Saline, Mich., also won multiple prizes. Cotten won for his novel “Your Anne Frank” and short fiction titled, “Three Stories.” Owen Dawson won for screenwriting and dramatic writing. The winners are listed below.
Hopwood Novel
- Graham Cotten, Ann Arbor, “Your Anne Frank,” $2,500
- Yasin Abdul-Muqit, Ann Arbor, “Stealing Wishes,” $2,500
- Jonathan Holland, Ypsilanti, Mich., “Sincerely, F***ed,” $2,000
Hopwood Screenplay Award
- Owen Dawson, Ann Arbor, “Carolyn,” $2,500
Hopwood Graduate Short Fiction
- Graham Cotten, Ann Arbor, “Three Stories,” $3,000
- Callie Collins, Ann Arbor, “Just Shut Your Mouth and Look Up, Roger” and “Sweetheart of the Pines,” $3,500
- Nell David, Ann Arbor, “Three Stories,” $6,000
Hopwood Undergraduate Poetry
- Isabel Sandweiss, Ann Arbor, “her senior thesis,” $3,000
- Sofia Fall, Ann Arbor, “Tributaries,” $6,500
Paul and Sonia Handleman Poetry Award
- Sofia Fall, Ann Arbor, “Tributaries,” $3,000
Hopwood Graduate Poetry
- Franny Choi, Ann Arbor, “Selenology Studies,” $4,000
Chamberlain Award for Creative Writing
- Kristin Nelson, Ann Arbor, “Beverly Quarles,” and “Recognition,” $1,300
Leonard and Eileen Newman Prize in Dramatic Writing
- Owen Dawson, Ann Arbor, “Carolyn,” $2,000
Leonard and Eileen Newman Writing Prize in Fiction
- Vagaas Aslam, Ann Arbor, “Sky Burial,” $2,000