Prizes: American undergraduate writers' prizes

       They'll be announcing the "largest undergraduate literary prize in the nation" (the US, that is -- though in fact it seems to be the biggest in the world) -- worth a cool $61,192 this year (up from $58,274 last year) -- today, Washington College's Sophie Kerr Prize.
       They announced the five finalists earlier this month. They're all English majors, and the portfolio of one includes: "an excerpt from a screenplay about a man who accidentally discovers photographs of Sigmund Freud dressed in women's clothing".

       At $61,192 the Sophie Kerr is, of course, not to be outdone -- but the University of Texas at Austin tried, or at least tried to steal some of the thunder, by annoucing yesterday that English Senior Wins $50,000 Keene Prize for Literature. Okay, the Keene is only: "one of the world's largest student literary prizes" -- but it's still good money (and the runners-up do better, since: "An additional $50,000 will be divided among three finalists").
       I have no idea about the winner's actual talents, but, man, has she racked up the honors. Leaving aside the Keene:

She is also a recent recipient of the George H. Mitchell Undergraduate Award for Academic Achievement, sharing the $25,000 top prize. Last year, she received the Roy Crane Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in the Literary Arts, the Ellen Engler Burks Memorial Scholarship, the Bailey Prize in Poetry, and the James F. Parker Prize from the English Department. For her work on her senior thesis, a study of the poet Frank Stanford, Noble won a Rapoport-King Scholarship.

       I wouldn't worry too much about her future .....