This $500 prize is awarded annually to the best essay published in a volume year of Shenandoah. All essays published in the magazine are automatically considered for the prize.


Past Recipients:

2011-2012: John Nelson, “Brolga the Dancing Crane Girl,” 61/2
2010: Amy Welden, “The Odd Girls,” 60/1-2
James L. MacLeod, “A Nun without a Habit,” 60/1-2
2009: Shari Wagner, “Camels, Cowries & a Poem for Aisha,” 59/2
Robert Benson, “Sound Memories,” 59/3
2008: Brandon Schrand, “The Bone Road” 58/1
2007: Joy Passanante, “Visitations,” 57/3
2006: Paul Crenshaw, “Military Days,” 56/3
2005: Paul Zimmer, “Living in the Trees,” 55/2
2004: Margot Singer, “Lila’s Story,” 54/3
2003: Jeffrey Hammond, “Night Moves,” 53/4
2002: Rebecca McClanahan, “The Van Angels,” 52/4
2001: Judith Yarnall, “Forgiving Abraham,” 51/2-3
2000: Jeffrey Hammond, “The Bible Tells Me So,” 50/3
1999: Tony Whedon, “Becoming Ovid,” 49/3
1998: Andrew Hudgins, “Royal Ambassadors for the Lord,” 48/3
1997: Reginald Gibbons, “American Dreams: 1950’s and 1960’s,” 47/2
1996: Rebecca McClanahan, “The Uncles,” 46/1
1995: Sidney Burris, “Heaney’s Argufying: Subjects That Matter,” 45/1
1994: Carol Ascher, “My Father’s Violin,” 44/4
1993: Karl A. Plank, “Unbroken Trains: Reflections on Michael Martin’s Approaching History ,” 43/2
1992: Monty S. Leitch, “Driving by Water,” 42/3
1991: W. D. Snodgrass, “Shapes Merging and Emerging,” 41/4
1990: Fred Chappell, “A Choice of Romantics: Allen Tate’s The Fathers,” 40/4
1989: Northrop Frye, “The Dialectic of Belief and Vision,” 39/3
1988: Brian Boyd, “Foretaste of Exile,” 38/4
1987: Seamus Heaney, “The Interesting Case of Nero, Checkhov’s Cognac and a Knocker,” 37/3