Additional Contests

The Academy of American Poets Prize recognizes outstanding student poetry, with separate $100 awards for one graduate student and one undergraduate student. Winners age 23 or younger may also be considered for the Academy's Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award.

Submission details

• Open to graduate and undergraduate students, with separate divisions
• Entries should consist of a single poem in any style.
• Poems submitted for this contest may be entered in other contests except for other single-poem contests and the Keith Taylor Award contest.
• No student who has won this award may compete again in the contest, nor may a winning poem be subsequently entered in any other Hopwood Program contest.

The Bain-Swiggett Poetry Prize recognizes a poem in form. This form can be traditional (i.e., sonnet, sestina, ghazal, etc.) or contemporary (i.e., golden shovel).

Submission details:

• Open to graduate and undergraduate students 
• Entries should consist of a single poem.
• Poems submitted for this contest may be entered in other contests except for other single-poem contests and the Keith Taylor Award contest.
• No student who has won this award may compete again in the contest, nor may a winning poem be subsequently entered in any other Hopwood Program contest.

The David Porter Award recognizes excellence in journalism, including news and feature writing, narrative journalism, and long-form journalism. It is named for David Porter, former Chair of the University of Michigan English Department and Director of the Detroit River Story Lab.

Submission details

• Open to graduate and undergraduate students
• Page limits: No minimum; 25-page maximum. 
• Work that has been previously published in a newspaper or trade magazine may be submitted; however, the piece must have been published within the time that the student has been enrolled as a University of Michigan student in the capacity in which they are currently enrolled. 
  • For instance, a current graduate student may not submit work published when they were an undergraduate. 
• Unpublished work may also be submitted to this contest.
• Manuscripts submitted in this contest may be submitted in other Hopwood contests.

Established by University of Michigan graduates Lawrence and Meg Kasdan, the Kasdan Scholarship recognizes outstanding dramatic writing. Finalist manuscripts are judged by a staff member at Kasdan Pictures.

Submission details

• Open to graduate and undergraduate students
• Submissions may be screenplays, plays, or teleplays. Preference will be given to screenplays, all other considerations being equal.
• Page limits: 
  • Screenplays: 90–110 pages
  • Teleplays: at least 50 pages
  • One-act plays: 50–60 pages
  • Full-length plays: 80–100 pages
• A contestant may submit only one screenplay or full-length play, but may submit two one-act plays.
• Only completed works, as opposed to works in progress, may be submitted.
• The same manuscript may be submitted in other contests administered by the Hopwood Program.
• Students may not enter work that has won a prize in any Hopwood contest.
• No student who has won this award may compete again in the contest.

The Michael R. Gutterman Award recognizes a poem that exemplifies the spirit of Avery Hopwood's charge to encourage “the new, the unusual, and the radical.”

Submission details

• Open to graduate and undergraduate students
• The submission should consist of a single poem of any length or style that exemplifies “the new, the unusual, and the radical.”
• Poems submitted for this contest may be entered in other contests except for other single-poem contests and the Keith Taylor Award contest.
• No student who has won this award may compete again in the contest.

The Text/Image Composition Prize recognizes work in which text and image come together to form an integrated composition. Submissions may combine genres and visual forms in a wide range of creative ways.

Text may include fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, or a combination of genres. Still images (black-and-white or color) may include drawn or painted illustrations, collage, photographs, public domain graphics, typography, innovative page arrangements, or a combination of these.

Submission details

• Open to graduate and undergraduate students
• Text and images must be created by the same author/artist and cannot be AI generated
• Page limits: Minimum 8 pages, Maximum 80 pages
• Submissions may consist of a single work or combination of two or more works, each of which combines text and image
  • For instance, a submission could be a full-length comic, several graphic poems, or a graphic essay and an illustrated short story
  • Each manuscript will be judged as a whole
• Manuscripts submitted to this contest may not be submitted to any other Hopwood contest