June 21st, 2011 / 1:22 pm
Contests & Snippets

So, wow, Yale just announced $150,ooo literary prizes that’ll be awarded starting in about a year and a half.  Endowed by the late writer Donald Windham, who “specifically requested that writers with no academic affiliation be considered.”  Here’s hoping prizes go to some surprising (in a good way) recipients.

24 Comments

  1. Anonymous

      i got this

  2. M. Kitchell

      you have an academic affiliation IT’S MINE

  3. Matthew Salesses

      the caption on the photo says he died “last year, in 1991.” huh?

  4. Nick Antosca

      The placement of commas suggests that while the man died last year, he is pictured in 1991.

  5. Adam Robinson

      Damn, all the writers without academic affiliations are the ones who are already rich.

  6. EC

      Nope, definitely not all of them!  But it occurs to me you’re just joking….

  7. Marc

      I have no idea what academic affiliation means.

  8. Triscopic

      So is it you can’t have gone to college? Or you can’t be a current student? Or professor? WHAT IS IT I NEED THIS MONEY

  9. dole

      My goal is simply to win this prize for real.

  10. Roxane

      The academic affiliation thing bums me out. It’s a great and necessary idea, for sure, to award this prize to writers who work outside of the academy but there are so many university-affiliated writers who don’t make that much at all and could really benefit from a prize like this. I’d be so psyched to win this. Of course, I’d be psyched to win like $100 too.

  11. Nathan Huffstutter

      Among the downsides to lacking an academic affiliation: it’s difficult to come up with solid letters of recommendation and you tend not to have close ties to the people who nominate others for awards. 

      Thank you for your consideration…

  12. deadgod

      inheritance, very successful investments and a very modest lifestyle

      Well, everybody wins a golden angling lesson.

  13. Frank Tas, the Raptor

      Curious to know how they plan on researching academic affiliation. Couldn’t you have academic affiliation and just not mention it? Submit under a false name that truly has no academic affiliations? Are they gonna search all the colleges in the US, and when they see your name attached to a transcript, will they withdraw your app? It’s not that I care; it’s more that I want people to stick their dick into and fuck the shit out of some loopholes.

  14. Gus

      i am really really curious if anyone can suggest names for established writers who might be up for this kind of beeswax?  Seriously any ideas? 

      i will be watching for sure, more curious to see what happens on this one than any lit news ever.  except for maybe the next season of jersey shore WHAT HAPPENS TO HER NECK?

  15. deadgod

      Guys, it says “be considered”, not “be the only candidates”.  It’s a Rooney Rule – designed to include writers “who[, like Windham himself,] never went to college”, not to exclude impoverished students or graduates – or ruthlessly exploited teachers.

  16. Frank Tas, the Raptor

      Ding!

  17. Guestagain

      The notion that you can still be designated a “writer” and not have academic affiliation is a positive spin of events in the ongoing bland academicization of all that is.

  18. Darby Larson

      im not reading that as the academically affiliated are being excluded, only that the non are included. 

  19. Sally Jenkins

      I’ve already one this. Thx for playing.

  20. Trey

      7-9 prizes, but “awards for poetry may be added later at the discretion of the awards committee”? god damn it.

  21. Bobbyknight

      “All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things.”

  22. Nick Antosca

      You can still win it if you are affiliated.  He just said they should be considered, so they don’t get ignored.  At least that’s how I read it.

  23. Trey

      bobby knight went to a weird school. I learned to write in kindergarten.

  24. dh

      How do I submit? Does Yale have a gmail account?