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Department of English

Graduate Awards | Creative Writing Awards

Each academic year the department offers a number of awards to graduate students for outstanding teaching and scholarly work. Awards usually include a modest monetary sum and are presented to the award winners at the annual department awards ceremony near the end of the spring term.

Nominations are not currently being accepted. Please check back in February of 2010 for nomination solicitations.

Here is a listing of possible awards:

Teaching Awards

Award Eligibility
Joseph Bentley Teaching Fellowship Teacher of any English course(s) at USF or through USF program within academic year selected
Estelle J. Zbar Award for Teaching & Academic Excellence in English Master's students only: teacher of Freshman Composition within academic year selected

Criteria for Teaching Awards (not in order of priority):

  1. Effectiveness of classroom presentation
  2. Rapport & interaction with students in the classroom
  3. Depth of knowledge of subject matter
  4. Quality of response to student assignments and exams
  5. Quality of assignments and rigor of grading standards
  6. Excellence of student evaluations

Scholarship & Overall Performance Awards

Award Eligibility
Harry S. Newman & Dorothy Linton Newman Awards for Academic Promise (two awards) Master's or Doctoral students
Areas of consideration (not all required and not in priority order):
  1. Overall GPA
  2. Scholarly production (papers, conference presentations, etc.)
  3. Service to Department (not necessarily teaching)
  4. Service to the Profession
[Financial need as secondary consideration]
Irving H. Rubin and Mollie M. Rubin Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Master's or Doctoral students
Areas of consideration (not all required and not in priority order):
  1. Overall GPA
  2. Scholarly production (papers, conference presentations, etc.)
  3. Service to Department (not necessarily teaching)
  4. Service to the Profession
Alice Hearne Scholarship for Outstanding Doctoral Candidate Doctoral candidates with approved prospectus
(not in priority order)
  1. Performance on the Ph.D. qualifying exam
  2. Doctoral GPA
  3. Scholarly production
  4. Quality of dissertation prospectus
Jack B. Moore Memorial Scholarship
  • Master's or Doctoral students
  • For work in American literature, with emphasis on American culture (published or unpublished
Irving Deer Memorial Scholarship
  • Master's or Doctoral students
  • Literature track only
  • For theoretically-oriented work in literary and cultural studies (published or unpublished)
John Iorio Award for Outstanding Graduate Student
  • Master's or Doctoral students
  • Literature track only
  • Outstanding academic record
Alma Bryant Award for Outstanding Graduate Student
  • Master's or Doctoral students
  • Rhetoric & Composition track only
  • Outstanding academic record

Creative Writing Awards

Each academic year the Department of English holds creative writing contests in the areas of fiction, poetry, science fiction, and screenwriting. The contests are open to all enrolled USF students in any major and level (with one exception, see Thomas E. Sanders Scholarship below). Awards usually include a modest monetary sum and are presented to the award winners at the annual department awards ceremony near the end of the spring term.

Entries are not currnetly being accepted. Please check back in February of 2010 for contest entry solicitations.

Possible awards include the following:

Award Contest Rules
Anspaugh Fiction Award
  1. All registered students at the University of South Florida are eligible.
  2. The work submitted must be previously unpublished prose fiction.
  3. Maximum length per entry: 5,000 words
  4. Each contestant may submit no more than two entries.
  5. Each contestant must submit two typed, double-spaced copies of each manuscript. Be sure to retain a copy for yourself. No manuscripts will be returned.
  6. To conceal the author’s identity, each manuscript shall use a pen name. The author’s actual name, pen name, local address, USF ID number, and telephone number must be placed in a sealed envelope accompanying the submission. Do not place your social security number anywhere on the submission.
Anspaugh Science Fiction Contest
  1. All registered students at the University of South Florida are eligible.
  2. The work submitted must be previously unpublished prose fiction (short stories or novellas).
  3. Maximum length per entry: 5,000 words. A group of closely related stories may be offered as a single entry.
  4. A contestant may submit one entry only.
  5. Each contestant must submit two, typed, double-spaced copies of the entry. Be sure to retain a copy for yourself. No manuscripts will be returned.
  6. To conceal the author’s identity, each manuscript shall use a pen name. The author’s actual name, pen name, local address, USF ID number, e-mail address, and telephone number must be placed in a sealed envelope accompanying the submission.
  7. For this contest, science fiction will be considered as springing from a limited number of arbitrary hypotheses relating to the hard or soft sciences, along with realistic development of their implications. Fantasies (examples being Watership Down and the Tolkien stories) are excluded from consideration. The contestant should be aware that the judges may weigh such esthetic factors as consistency of extrapolation, precision of analogy, and width of reference as heavily as story-telling technique.
  8. To be considered for the science fiction award, a submission must declare its category or genre to be Science Fiction. Such declaration will not make the piece ineligible for other awards. That is, a science fiction piece of sufficient overall merit could be eligible for two awards.
  9. NOTE: If no science fiction entry is deemed worthy of a prize by the judges, then no science fiction award will be given.
Knocky Parker Award for Creative Nonfiction Writing
  1. All registered students at the University of South Florida are eligible.
  2. Each contestant may submit one entry only. Do not send your only copy. Manuscripts will NOT be returned.
  3. To conceal the author’s identity, each manuscript shall use a pen name. The author’s actual name, pen name, local address, e-mail address, USF ID number, and telephone number must be placed in a sealed envelope accompanying the submission. Do not place your social security number anywhere on the submission.
The Thomas E. Sanders Scholarship in Creative Writing To read a brief bio about Professor Thomas E. Sanders, please click here.
  • Any undergraduate creative writing fiction or poetry major in the Department of English who has not reached the last term of academic residence.
  • Submit a letter which explains your qualifications for the scholarship, along with a sample of your creative work, and a cover page listing your name, local address, USF ID number, e-mail address, and telephone number.
  • Do not place your social security number anywhere on the submission.
  • Be sure to retain a copy of your application materials for yourself. No manuscripts will be returned.
[Financial necessity need not be a qualifying condition.]
Note: The recipient will be chosen by the creative writing committee. The scholarship is non-renewable; however, recipients may reapply in subsequent years.
Estelle J. Zbar Poetry Contest
  1. All registered students at the University of South Florida are eligible.
  2. The work submitted must be previously unpublished.
  3. A contestant may submit no more than three poems.
  4. Each contestant must submit two typed copies of each poem. Be sure to retain a copy for yourself, since poems will not be returned.
  5. To conceal the author’s identity, each manuscript shall use a pen name. The author’s actual name, pen name, local address, USF ID number, and telephone number must be placed in a sealed envelope accompanying the submission. Do not place your social security number anywhere on the submission.
The Bettye Newman Poetry Award
  1. All registered students at the University of South Florida are eligible.
  2. The work submitted must be previously unpublished.
  3. A contestant may submit no more than three poems.
  4. Each contestant must submit two typed copies of each poem. Be sure to retain a copy for yourself, since poems will not be returned.
  5. To conceal the author’s identity, each manuscript shall use a pen name. The author’s actual name, pen name, local address, USF ID number, and telephone number must be placed in a sealed envelope accompanying the submission. Do not place your social security number anywhere on the submission.