Meyer Prize for Excellence in Literature
Endowed by retired WOU faculty members Richard Meyer and Lotte Larsen, The Meyer Prize for Excellence in Literature is awarded yearly for an outstanding essay written in an upper-division course on literature. Students need not be English majors. The papers are evaluated in a blind-review process by at least five members of the literature faculty plus one non-English department professor.
The award for the Meyer Prize is $500. Second and Third place papers receive $100 and $25 respectively. The winning student, a guest, and their professor are also invited to a celebration dinner with the Meyers.
Click here for: List of Recipients & Runners-up (below) | Award Criteria
Annual Recipients & Runners-up
2008-2009:
- Winner: Evan Christopher, "As Hard as the Middle of Thunder: Age and Love, Linguistics and Poetics, and Stanley Kuntz's 'Touch Me'" click here to read this essay
- First Runner-up: Caitlin Manion, "Wordsworthian Imagery and Childhood in The Mill on the Floss" click here to read this essay
- Second Runner-up: Taisa Efseaff, "The Mythic Figure of God as Presented in The Bible" click here to read this essay
2007-2008:
- Winner: Katie Tvrdy, "Articulation in Austerlitz: The Reevaluation of the Holocaust Discourse" click here to read this essay
- First Runner-up: Daniel Bruner, "'Where all the Ladders Start': The Conduits of Art in the Poetry of W.B. Yeats" click here to read this essay
- Second Runner-up: Allison Houck, "Daisy Buchanan: Victim or Victimizer?" click here to read this essay
2006-2007:
- Winner: Jon Bernard, "Variations on a Theme: Faith, Doubt, and Reason as Explored by Hopkins and Tennyson"
- First Runner-up: Jennifer Carmichael, "Storytelling in Midnight's Children: Self-Construction through Remembering and the Vulnerability of Forgetting"
- Second Runner-up: Bryan Beck, "Absurd Realism: The Inaccurate Criticism of Gao Zingjian's 'The Bus Stop'"
2005-2006:
- Winner: Jennifer Carmichael, "From Brigand to Bookworm: How Reading Shapes Interiority"
- Runners-up (tie): Shauna Anderson, "Center of Instability as the Abyss of Paranoia" and Amanda Miles, "Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: From Freud to Erikson"
2004-2005:
- Co-Winners: Shobana Breeden, “The Conflict Between Patriarchy and Unwedded Pregnancy” and Amanda Hughes, “Enabling or Discouraging Change: God’s Bits of Wood versus Nervous Conditions.”
- Second Runner-up: Brooke Snelling, “Nigeria: A Tragic Hero.”
2003-2004:
- Winner: Shelley Stonebrook, “Seeking Progress and Truth in a Cyclical, Magical Past: Representations of History in the Post-Colonial Novel.”
- First Runner-up: Stephanie W. Hampton, “Marriage in Toni Morrison’s Work: The Legacy of Slavery in Family Relations Through Generations.”
- Second Runners-up (tie): Janelle Davis, “Heroic Effort Required” and Lucas Howard, “Language and the Fallibility of History.”
2002-2003:
- Winner: Susanne Dora, “All that We Can’t Leave Behind: The Inescapable Influence of History on Perspective.”
- Runners-up (tie): Kyle Baker, “Tides of Thought in Moby Dick: Deconstructing the Doubloon” and Bethany Lamb “Time for The Body Artist”
2001-2002:
- Winner: Celeste Barker, untitled essay on Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Award Criteria
- The paper must have literature as its central focus.
- Any paper written in (or translated into) English and that was originally submitted for an upper-division (300 & 400 level) class at WOU is eligible.
- Students may submit no more than 1 essay. A professor may nominate up to 3 essays, but only if they were written for his/her class. No student can have more than 2 essays entered in the competition.
- Papers should be submitted in their original format: ie. with no revisions. Ideally, two copies of the paper should be submitted: one containing instructor commentary; another that is "clean" (without comments). This is guard against revised essays being submitted. A clean copy is not required for submission, however.
- Papers should be submitted to the Organizer of the competition (Gavin Keulks), who will strip them of all identification, comments, and grades to ensure a "blind" competition.
- Papers need to have been written during the preceding spring, summer, fall, and winter terms. For example: for the 2006-2007 competition, papers should have been written during spring 2006, summer 2006, fall 2006, and winter 2007.
- Papers can be submitted at any time. The deadline for submission is April 15, with winners announced in mid-May. The winning student (and possibly runners-up) will be asked to summarize their essay at our annual awards ceremony in late-May.
- In the unlikely event of a questionable submission (ie. a revised essay or an essay whose primary focus is not literature but, say, the literary industry), the steering committee (Gavin Keulks, Curt Yehnert, Tom Rand) will make the final decision regarding eligibility.
- If the Organizer receives more than 15 essays, the steering committee will winnow the initial submissions down to 15.
- A student can win only one award in any year's competition. A student may enter the competition in multiple years, however, regardless of prior results.
- In the event of a tie for first place, the co-winning essays will receive $300 each. In the event of ties for second or third place, those essays will split $100 or $50 respectively.
The following profile of previous winning essays is intended to help you consider whether to submit an essay -- or decide which of your papers to submit:
- winning essays have always been longer than 7 pages
- winning essays have always incorporated external sources
- winning essays have always received an original grade of "A"