Emily Skaja
Please join me in congratulating Emily Skaja, a 2015 graduate of the creative writing MFA program, for winning the Academy of American Poets’ 2018 Walt Whitman Award for her manuscript, Brute.
The Walt Whitman Award is the nation’s most valuable first-book prize for a poet. As the winner, Emily will receive a six-week, all-expenses-paid residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbria, Italy, as well as a $5,000 prize. The Academy of American Poets will also purchase thousands of copies of the book and distribute to its members, making it one of the most widely distributed poetry books of the year.
Graywolf Press will publish Brute in April 2019. Emily will also be featured on Poets.org and in American Poets magazine.
Emily is the recipient of a Taft Research Fellowship from the University of Cincinnati, where she is working toward a Ph.D. in poetry and a certificate in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. She is also associate poetry editor of Southern Indiana Review.
Congratulations, Emily!
David A. Reingold
Justin S. Morrill Dean
College of Liberal Arts