Each spring, Lake Forest College, in conjunction with the &NOW Festival, sponsors emerging writers under forty years old—with no major book publication—to spend two months in residence at our campus in Chicago’s northern suburbs on the shore of Lake Michigan.

There are no formal teaching duties attached to the residency. Time is to be spent completing a manuscript, participating in the annual Lake Forest Literary Festival, and offering a series of public presentations.

The completed manuscript will be published (upon approval) by &NOW Books imprint, with distribution by Northwestern University Press.

The stipend is $10,000 with a housing suite and campus meals provided by the college.

Winners

2011 Winner (Poetry):

José Perez Beduya, whose book, Throng, will be released in October 2012 pending completion during his residency. (Guest Judge: Jennifer Moxley.)

2010 Winner (Prose):

Gretchen Henderson, whose book Galerie de Difformité, will be released in October 2011.

2009 Winner (Poetry):

Jessica Savitz, whose book Hunting is Painting, was released in October 2010.

Apply for the Madeline P. Plonsker Prize

Guidelines (Deadline April 1, every year):

We invite applications for a writer under forty years old, with no major book publication, to spend two months (February-March or March-April) in residence at Lake Forest College.

Cross-genre works are always welcome. Beyond this, even residency years (with odd year deadlines) look for prose writers. Odd residency years (with even years deadlines) look for poets.

• 2012 residency, deadline April 1, 2011: prose
• 2013 residency, deadline April 1, 2012: poetry
• 2014 residency, deadline April 1, 2013: prose
• 2015 residency, deadline April 1, 2014: poetry
• 2016 residency, deadline April 1, 2015: prose

Send:

• Curriculum vita
• No more than 30 pages of manuscript in progress
• A one-page statement of plans for completion

PLEASE NOTE: The author’s name should appear only on the cover page of the manuscript sample.

Plonsker Residency
Department of English
Lake Forest College
Box A16
555 N. Sheridan Road
Lake Forest, IL 60045.

Submissions must be postmarked by April 1, each year for consideration by judges Robert Archambeau, Davis Schneiderman, and Joshua Corey and that year’s guest judge.

Direct inquiries to andnow@lakeforest.edu with the subject line: Plonsker Prize.