Overview
Mr. E. L. Keene, a 1942 graduate of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, envisioned a prize that would honor and support the pursuit of great American writing, and through his estate made possible the Keene Prize in Literature.
In establishing this prize, Mr. Keene hoped "to encourage the writing and publishing of good American Literature, to lend financial support to the creators of such literature, and to enhance the prestige and reputation in the world market of American writers both now and in the future." According to Mr. Keene's wishes, the recipient of this prize will be selected from among those who create "the most vivid and vital portrayal of the American experience in microcosm."
In addition, the winner will be the student who demonstrates "the greatest artistic merit and narrative mastery of the English language and has shown the greatest promise of becoming a professional writer, as judged by the Scholarship Committee of the College of Liberal Arts."
Categories
Poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fictional prose.
Judges
As mandated by Mr. Keene's will, the Judges of the Prize will be the Dean of Liberal Arts, the Chair of the Department of English, the Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance, the Director of the University of Texas Press, and an author who is resident in Austin.
Prize
The winner of the Keene Prize will receive $50,000. A further $50,000 will be divided between three runners-up.
Eligibility
All undergraduate or graduate students currently enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin are eligible to compete, with the exception of previous winners of the prize. Entrants must be enrolled during the semester of submission, Spring 2009.
Electronic Submissions
Applicants should submit electronically, in a single document, a collection of poetry, a complete play, or a work of prose, plus a separate curriculum vitae. Submissions should be original work, demonstrating superior expression and craftsmanship. The may not have been published before September 1, 2008. Only one submission per applicant please.
Deadline and Submission Procedure
By March 2nd, 2009 please submit TWO separate electronic documents, your entry and CV, to keeneprize@mail.dla.utexas.edu. The CV must contain the following information: author's name, title of entry, address, phone number, e-mail address, current standing at the University, and UT EID. Very Important: The entry itself should contain no identifying markers except the title. If it does so it will not be accepted. Pages should be numbered and proofread.
- Poetry - Minimum 10 pages, maximum 30 pages. May be one poem or a collection of poems.
- Play - Use standard play format. 12,500 words maximum.
- Prose – Minimum 7,500 words, maximum 12,500 words. May be one work, an extract from a longer work, or a compilation of shorter works.
- Non-fictional Prose – same as above.
Results
2008 Competition Results
Winner
George Brant, a recent graduate of the James A. Michener Center for Writers, for the play “Elephant’s Graveyard.”
Brant's play was chosen out of 51 submissions in drama, poetry and fiction. In addition to the Keene Prize, it earned the 2008 David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center. Produced at the university last fall, it was honored as Best New Play by the Austin Critics’ Table.
“‘Elephant’s Graveyard’ is a strikingly original and imaginative drama,” said Elizabeth Butler Cullingford, chair of the English Department and of the award selection committee. “Brant uses the true story of Mary, a circus elephant who killed an handler and was executed by hanging, to create a dramatic portrait of small-town Tennessee life in 1916. Employing choruses of townspeople and circus performers who speak directly to the audience but never to each other, Brant transforms a bizarre historical incident into a moving and metaphorically resonant narrative in which the elephant, her loyal trainer, and the ballet girl who makes her entrance wrapped in Mary’s trunk, command our sympathy.”
Finalist
Smith Henderson, master of fine arts candidate at the Michener Center, for his short stories “Number Stations” and “Muscles.” The committee singled out Henderson's stories, which are set in his native Montana, for their combination of wry humor, rich detail, convincingly terse dialogue and emotional depth.
Finalist
Domenica Ruta, a recent graduate of the Michener Center, for the opening chapters of her novel “Edgewater.” The committee praised the novel’s large cast of idiosyncratic characters and artful interweaving of scenes, which gradually create the back story of a mysterious murder.
Finalist
Sarah Smith, master of fine arts candidate at the Michener Center, for three stories: “The Wild Girl of Western Pennsylvania,” “The Bigtime” and “Night Shift at the Don Knotts Memorial Hospital.” The committee commended Smith’s quirky, poetic voice, and her sharp powers of observation and comic inventiveness, which create intriguing characters.
Previous Winners
2007 Competition Results
Winner
Will Dunlap, master of fine arts candidate with the Michener Center for Writers, for two short stories “Pastoral Sonata” and “Devotion.”
The quirky, mysterious and original “Pastoral Sonata” vividly evokes an old woman who mourns her drowned husband through a bizarre charade of blindness, and imagines his spirit lives on in her pet goldfish. “Devotion,” a disturbing story set on the nineteenth-century frontier, has its origin in a historical incident, the murder of a group of defenseless Native Americans by white farmers. Dunlap brilliantly recreates the prose style of the period through the journal entries of his narrator, an itinerant preacher.
“Dunlap’s writing has great emotional sensitivity and power,” said Elizabeth Butler Cullingford, chair of the English department and a member of the selection committee. “He has a musician’s ear for language together with a gift for effective story-telling. And the complexity of his characterization is remarkable: the old woman in ‘Pastoral Sonata’ turns out to be a musical critic and an accomplished actress, while the reader slowly realizes that the narrator of ‘Devotion’ is unreliable and capable of self-deception. Our committee was impressed by Dunlap’s versatility: his two stories are completely different in period, style and tone.”
Finalist
Kate Hagner, master’s in creative writing (’07), for “Pear (and other stories).”
Hagner's characters experience mysterious obsessions and undergo strange metamorphoses. Her stories are remarkable for their poetic language, which vividly evokes colors, shapes and textures. "Pear," "Birds" and "Agave" are precisely observed but highly imaginative representations of the interaction between human beings and nature.
Finalist
Smith Henderson, master of fine arts candidate with the Michener Center, for his short stories “Twelver” and “Blooms.”
"Twelver" was singled out for its command of both poetic and colloquial language, its ingenious mathematical structure, and its imaginative use of motifs like buffalo nickels, dying cows, and exploding volcanoes. His witty account of the culture clash between California and Montana and his excellent evocation of a particular place also drew praise.
Finalist
Kevin Jones, master of fine arts candidate with the Michener Center, for his three short stories in “North American Male.”
All these stories impressed the committee with the energy of their narrative voices and the author’s assured use of dialogue. Judges praised the conceptual originality of "Parts," and the vivid humor of "Uncle to the Rescue."
2006 Competition Results
Winner
Brian Hart, master of fine arts candidate with the Michener Center for writers, for the fictional narrative, “The Dog With the Broken Teeth, The One That Fetches Rocks.”
"The wonderful dialogue and closely observed world of Brian's work won us over," said Richard Lariviere, former dean of the College of Liberal Arts. "The quality of the applicant pool was astonishingly high. It was hard to choose, but the consensus of the selection committee was strong."
Finalist
George Brant, master of fine arts candidate with the Michener Center, for his play "N O K."
Finalist
Seth Harp, economics senior, for his essay "Leaving Iraq."
Finalist
Michael McGriff, master of fine arts candidate with the Michener Center, for his poem "Where Light Falls, the Last Detail
Becomes the World."
Finalist
Jake Silverstein, master of fine arts candidate with the Michener Center, for his novel excerpt "Golden State."