Hopwoods honor up-and-coming talent

Being honored with the Hopwood Awards allows these young writers
the opportunity to greatly increase their chances of success with
their writing careers by putting their names out into the open.

One such writer, Tyler Lieberman, was awarded the Naomi
Saferstein Literary Award for his screenplay, “The Good Doctor,”
about a surgeon who murders a man in order to use his heart in a
transplant operation. Lieberman faced his biggest challenge with
this piece in his attempt to create a sympathetic character, in
order for the audience to understand that although a murderer, the
doctor’s intentions remained noble.

Along with this interesting dilemma in the plot, the junior film
and video studies major’s goal always focused on his ability to
find a comfortable ending for the reader.

The winner of the Robert F. Haugh prize was given to Joshua
Gross, for his submission of two stories. One of these stories,
“All Right, Fine, Let’s Talk About It,” deals with a man forced to
confront his own helplessness as a father on the anniversary of his
friend’s son’s suicide. His other submission, “The Revisionist,” is
about a young man coping with his guilt after he has won the
lottery by playing the numbers tattooed on his grandfather’s
forearm during the Holocaust. Gross plans to move to California
next year to pursue his writing career.

For his screenplay, “Last Heroes of the Plastic West,” Josh
Izenberg received the Leonard and Eileen Newman writing prizes.
This will be the second piece that Izenberg has written for his
screenwriting class. A serious story written with a trace of
comedy, “Last Heroes of the Plastic West” is about a country
western singer on the run from the law.

Along with Megan Newell, John Cox was the recipient of the
Meader Family Award for the collection of poems in his manuscript
entitled “Special Collection,” most of which were one-sentence
vignettes about history. Cox plans to continue his writing career
and to pursue a doctorate in literary theory after completing his
current Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry.

The Geoffrey James Gosling Prize was awarded to Elizabeth
Kostova, for her novel in progress, The Historian, which concerns
the historical Dracula, and the three generations of historians in
constant pursuit of his career. Kostova is enjoying her studies at
the University as she is currently in the first year of the MFA
program. She plans to finish her novel during the summer and write
a second one after graduation, one with a contemporary American
setting.

Proving that the third time indeed really is the charm, Amanda
Frost was awarded the Paul and Sonia Handleman Poetry Award after
entering her poetry into the contest for the third time. The
submission, a culmination of three years of work and longer than
most winning manuscripts at approximately 50 pages, contained many
poems that were inspired by the biology and history classes that
she has taken at the University; they can be classified as nature
poetry or romantic poetry. As a junior who has been writing poetry
for seven years, Frost anticipates applying to an MFA program for
graduate school in order to explore environmental and technological
issues and their impact in her future poetry.

With the many talents at the University, the Hopwood Awards
enable many young writers to be recognized for the gift and
enthusiasm that they have for the art of writing. Receiving such
awards will permit them to expand their horizons and to attain the
many goals that they have set for themselves and their
literature.