Knox College | News - Knox Writers Rank First in Region

According to figures provided by the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM), Knox College students have outdistanced all competitors in the prestigious Nick Adams Short Story Competition, during the nearly thirty-year period (1973-2001) in which the educational consortium has administered the writing contest.

The competition is open to students in ACM schools: Knox, Beloit, Carleton, Coe, Colorado College, Cornell College, Grinnell, Lawrence, Macalester, Monmouth, Lake Forest, Ripon, St. Olaf, and The University of Chicago.

Since the first competition in 1973, Knox students have won seven first place and 26 finalist awards. St. Olaf College is Knox's closest rival with a total of five first prizes and 13 finalist awards. The first Knox student to win the contest was Susan Rowe Doe, who won in 1978 and currently teaches English at Colorado State University. The most recent Knox winner is Elaine Farrugia, who received the top award this spring. A chart of winners is shown below.

Over the thirty year span, Nick Adams entries have been judged by a number of outstanding American authors, including Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award winners Saul Bellow, John Updike, Anne Tyler, Joyce Carol Oates, Elizabeth Hardwick, Maya Angelou, Jane Smiley, Barbara Kingsolver, Charles Baxter, Bharati Mukherjee, Jane Hamilton, and Larry Heinemann. The annual competition, which carries a $1,000 first place award, is supported by gifts from an anonymous donor. It is named after a protagonist in several short stories by Ernest Hemingway.

Knox's dominance of the contest comes as no surprise to Robin Metz, director of the Knox Program in Creative Writing and English Department Chair. "It's not uncommon for our writers to publish professionally while still undergraduates," Metz said.

The nationally acclaimed "Intro" series, an annual anthology of works by the nation's best, previously unpublished student authors, has included numerous Knox writers, as have several literary journals. "Knox's literary magazine, "Catch," has won several national awards and was named best in the nation twice by the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines -with Harvard, Amherst, Northwestern, Oberlin, and Michigan State designated as runners-up," Metz said.

Knox undergraduate writers often receive distinguished fellowships from top graduate writing programs, Metz indicated. He cited the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, Brown University, Stanford University, Iowa State, University of Texas, USC, University of Michigan, NYU, and Washington University in St. Louis as frequent choices.

"After graduation, quite a number write successful plays or publish books," he continued, "while others become editors at such publishing houses as Doubleday; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Simon and Schuster; Oxford University Press; and various American university presses." Still others become attorneys, journalists, college professors, teachers, or work in public relations, communications, or advertising, Metz said, and "one graduate is now a top Hollywood agent."

Metz attributed Knox successes to "outstanding students, professionally active and accomplished faculty members, and a College-wide commitment to excellent teaching."

NICK ADAMS PRIZE WINNERS, 1972-2001
School	First Prize	Finalists
Knox	7	26
St. Olaf	5	13
Macalester	4	13
Colorado College	3	15
Beloit	3	15
Lawrence	2	11
Grinnell	1	7
Carleton	0	8
Univ of Chicago	1	5
Lake Forest	1	5
Cornell College	1	4
Coe	1	2
Monmouth	1	2

Knox College Student Writers Rank First in Midwest

NICK ADAMS PRIZE WINNERS, 1972-2001