Free and open to the public, this reading will take place outdoors on the east side of the museum
Join Inprint for a celebratory reading of the 2023 Inprint Prize Winners. This spring, Inprint awarded 10 prizes ranging from $1,000 – $10,000 to nine students studying creative writing at the University of Houston and one undergraduate at Rice University. The winners, selected by outside judges, will give short readings from their prize-winning works. Inprint Executive Director Rich Levy will give opening remarks and a make a toast to the winners.
The event will be part of the Menil’s Neighborhood Community Day. Earlier that afternoon, the Inprint Poetry Buskers will be on-site writing free poems for Community Day attendees. For the full schedule of the Menil’s Neighborhood Community Day events, click here.
2023 Inprint Prize Winners
Pritha Bhattacharyya, Inprint Joan and Stanford Alexander Prize in Fiction
Pritha Bhattacharyya is a Bengali-American writer. She is a fiction PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston, an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow, and winner of the 2023 Inprint Joan and Stanford Alexander Prize in Fiction. She received her MFA from Boston University, where she was awarded a Leslie Epstein Global Fellowship to travel to Osaka, Japan. She has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. She was a finalist for Glimmer Train‘s 2019 Short Story Award for New Writers. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Ecotone, Ninth Letter, Nashville Review, Bodega, and elsewhere.
Weijia Pan, Inprint Paul Verlaine Prize in Poetry
Weijia Pan is a poet and translator from Shanghai, China. A winner of the 2023 Inprint Verlaine Prize in Poetry, he holds a BA in Comparative Literature from UCLA and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Houston. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming from AGNI, The Georgia Review, Copper Nickel, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. Weijia also translates contemporary Chinese poetry and is editing an anthology of poems about COVID-19.
Adele Elise Williams, Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing at the University of Houston
Adele Elise Williams is a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston where she is an Inprint Nina and Michael Zilkha Fellow and serves as nonfiction editor for Gulf Coast. She is the winner of an Academy of American Poets Prize, the Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing, and the Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize for Poetry, as well as a finalist for the 2022 Loraine Williams Poetry Prize. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Air/Light, The Georgia Review, Crazyhorse, Guernica, Cream City Review, The Florida Review, and elsewhere.
Anna Rajagopal, Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing at Rice University
Anna Rajagopal is a South Asian Jewish student writer in pursuit of their Bachelor’s of the Arts in English & Creative Writing at Rice University. Through the use of multilingual and multicultural poetry, Anna seeks to engage in the subversion of English as a colonial language, but also to engage in celebration of its lyricism—demonstrating the often contradictory ways that diaspora shapes our notions of self. Anna is presently applying to graduate programs in pursuit of an MFA in Creative Writing. Anna’s work has been featured in Houstonia Magazine, Santa Clara Review, New Politics, Hey Alma, and elsewhere. Above all, Anna hopes to write from a place of love.
Ryan Bollenbach, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction
Ryan Bollenbach is a writer and musician living in Houston, Texas. He is the managing editor of Gulf Coast and formerly served as the poetry editor for Black Warrior Review. A recipient of the 2023 Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction, his prose has appeared in Mid-American Review, Booth, Knee-Jerk, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere.
Stephanie Pushaw, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction
Stephanie Pushaw grew up in Los Angeles and has since lived in Scotland, Montana, Australia, New Orleans, and Japan. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of
Layla Al-Bedawi, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Nonfiction
Layla Al-Bedawi is a writer of fiction, poetry, and hybrid strangelings, a language and writing instructor, community builder, occasional podcaster, and bookbinder (among other things). English is her third language, but she’s been dreaming in it for years. Born in Germany to Kurdish and Ukrainian parents, she moved to the US in 2006 and currently lives in the Houston, TX area. She is one of the founders of Fuente Collective, an organization that facilitates experimentation, collaboration, and hybridity in writing and other arts. Her work is published Wigleaf, Bayou Magazine, Winter Tangerine, Juked, Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Liminal Stories, Crab Fat Magazine, and elsewhere; it has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, IGNYTE Award, and Rhysling Award, and has been selected for the Best Small Fictions anthology.
Maha Ahmed, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry
Maha Ahmed is an Egyptian poet and translator. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Oregon and is currently an English & Creative Writing PhD candidate at the University of Houston specializing in Empire Studies. Her poetry and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Grist, The Adroit Journal, Rusted Radishes, The Recluse, and elsewhere. She is the poetry editor for the Beirut-based literary magazine Rusted Radishes and the online nonfiction editor at Gulf Coast.
Josh English, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry
Josh English grew up in a converted barn in the woods of northwest New Jersey. He received his MFA from the University of South Carolina and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Houston’s Literature and Creative Writing program where he is an Inprint C.Glenn Cambor Fellow and winner of the Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry. He served as poetry editor of Gulf Coast and was the co-founding editor of the poetry outfit Oxidant|Engine. His manuscript has been a finalist for Alice James, Saturnalia, New Issues and elsewhere, and his poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Crazyhorse, Lana Turner Review, Bennington Review, Omniverse, West Branch and more. He lives in Houston with his wife and twin children.
Rosa Boshier González, Inprint Marion Barthelme Gulf Coast Prize
Rosa Boshier González is a writer and editor from Los Angeles. Her fiction, essays, and art criticism appear in Guernica, Catapult, Literary Hub, The New York Times, Artforum, Hyperallergic, The Rumpus, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. She serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Gulf Coast and is a recent recipient of the Inprint Marion Barthelme Gulf Coast Prize.
Inprint has been proud to support some of the world’s top emerging writers through annual fellowships and juried prizes for graduate students at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program and an annual prize for an undergraduate at Rice University. This year alone Inprint has provided $281,500 in direct support to these students, and since 1983, Inprint’s support of 600+ emerging writers has totaled more than $4.5 million. Recipients of these fellowships and prizes come from all parts of the world and have gone on to impact our local and national communities through teaching, writing, publishing, and more.
Special thanks to Joan and Stanford Alexander, The Friends of Marion Barthelme, Nina and Michael Zilkha, and the Inprint Board of Directors, who make these prizes possible. Inprint also receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Jerry C. Dearing Family Foundation, Houston Endowment, The City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.