Every year, Yale students and alumni are extremely well represented in the Norman Mailer Writing Awards, a national competition administrated by the National Council of Teachers of English (the NCTE). According to Fred Strebeigh’s accounting, over the six years of the competition’s existence, 50% of all winners of the nonfiction award have been from Yale. Additionally, a total of 41% of all honorees (winners, finalists, and semi-finalists) over those years have been Yale students or alumni.
This year, the winner was Eric Boodman, a recent alum. His winning entries can be found here: http://www.ncte.org/awards/nmwa/winners
It is worth a special note that the three Yale winners from over the last six years all produced their award-winning essays while working with Anne Fadiman.
This year every single finalist and semifinalist in this category is a Yale student or alum. The finalists are Jennifer Gersten, Devon Geyelin, Jesse Schreck, and Yanan Wang. The semifinalists are Michelle Hackman, Katherine Lin, Sophie Mendelson, Katy Osborn, Jacob Osborne. In the poetry category, Yale was represented by Cynthia Hua as a finalist and Jordana Cepelewicz as a semifinalist.
Congratulations to all!
–Source: yaledailynews.com