Amelia Urry to be Honored at Fifth Annual Benefit Gala to Take Place October 17 at
The New York Public Library
NEW YORK, N.Y. (October 3, 2013)―The Norman Mailer Center and Writers Colony (www.nmcenter.org) president and co�founder, Lawrence Schiller, in
a partnership with the National Council of Teachers of English, today
announced this year’s recipient of the National College Poetry Award is Amelia Urry
of Yale University. Urry will be presented with her award and a check
for $2,500 at the Center’s fifth annual benefit gala on Thursday,
October 17, at The New York Public Library in New York City. Honorary
Chair, Gay Talese, with Masters of Ceremonies, David Black and Dick Cavett, will
host a lively evening of cocktails, dinner and an awards ceremony
celebrating renowned and emerging writers alike. For further details on
the Center and the gala, please visit www.nmcenter.org.
The
annual gala attracts over 500 distinguished guests from the worlds of
literature, culture, business and philanthropy, including Nobel
Laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, Booker Prize winners, and National
Book Award winners, among them celebrated poet, memoirist, and novelist Dr. Maya Angelou, author Junot Díaz, and late journalist and former Norman Mailer Center graduate Michael Hastings.
Urry
is a recent graduate of Yale University where she majored in English
and completed a collection of poetry as her thesis project. Urry is
currently working with Yale University Adjunct Professor Michael Frame
to co-author a book on fractal geometry. She currently resides in
Seattle, WA.
Over
1,000 high school students, plus two-year and four-year college
students, submitted entries for the 2013 Norman Mailer National High
School, Community College, and College Nonfiction Writing Awards, which
will be presented at the gala in partnership with the National Council
of Teachers of English, in addition to the National High School
Teacher’s Award.
This year, Dr. Maya Angelou
will be honored with the Norman Mailer Prize for Lifetime Achievement.
Dr. Angelou is one of the most renowned and influential voices of our
time. Hailed as a global renaissance woman, Dr. Angelou is a celebrated
poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress,
historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. With the guidance of
her friend, the novelist James Baldwin, she wrote I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
The book was published to international acclaim and enormous popular
success. The list of her published verse, non-fiction, and fiction now
includes more than 30 bestselling titles. A trailblazer in film and
television, Dr. Angelou wrote the screenplay and composed the score for
the 1972 film Georgia, Georgia. Her script, the first by an
African American woman ever to be filmed, was nominated for a Pulitzer
Prize. Dr. Angelou has served on two presidential committees, was
awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in
2008, and has received 3 Grammy Awards. President Clinton requested that
she compose a poem to read at his inauguration in 1993. Dr. Angelou has
received over 30 honorary degrees and is Reynolds Professor of American
Studies at Wake Forest University.
Junot Díaz
will be honored with the Norman Mailer Prize for Distinguished
Writing. Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in
New Jersey. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Drown; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and This Is How You Lose Her, a The New York Times
bestseller and National Book Award finalist. He is the recipient of a
MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Award, Dayton Literary Peace
Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and PEN/O. Henry Award. A graduate of
Rutgers College, Diaz is currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Michael Hastings
will posthumously receive the Norman Mailer Award for Emerging
Journalist. Hastings was an American journalist and contributing editor
at Rolling Stone known for his uncompromising and aggressive
reporting style. Hastings was one of the first graduates of The Norman
Mailer Center. He received the George Polk Award for his candid Rolling Stone
interview “The Runaway General,” with General Stanley McChrystal. The
interview with then commander of NATO’s International Security
Assistance Force in the Afghanistan war eventually led to McChrystal
being relieved of his command. Hastings is the author of The New York Times bestseller The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan,
detailing the flaws of the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan. He
passed away in June 2013 at the young age of 33 and is survived by his
wife Elise Jordan, who will be accepting the award on his behalf.
THE NORMAN MAILER CENTER AND WRITERS COLONY is
an educational nonprofit dedicated to nurturing the values of Mailer’s
work in future generations of writers. Through a diverse set of
programming including creative writing workshops, the Mailer
Fellowships, student and teacher writing awards, artist retreat
programs, and initiatives for international outreach and exchange, the
Center provides educational, monetary and professional support to early� and mid�career
writers in all genres who relish dialogue and debate; are driven by an
endless curiosity to make sense of the times in which they live; fully
exercise their creativity; apply themselves to the craft of writing with
the rigor of an athlete; and wish to reach a broad audience through
their work. Through its programming, the Center aims to preserve the
role of the engaged writer as not only a legitimate, but an
indispensable voice in contemporary dialogue. Visit www.nmcenter.org for more information.
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