Elizabeth Alexander
Creative Writing Award
The Elizabeth Alexander Creative Writing Award celebrates an author whose work embodies the lyrically powerful and historically engaged nature of Dr. Alexander’s writing. We aim for this award to highlight different forms of knowledge production that emerge from the artistic, political, and cultural advocacy undertaken by women of color nationally, transnationally, and globally.
Each year we award two winners: one in Poetry and one in Prose. Each winner will receive:
- A $500 Cash Prize
- Publication in Meridians
- The opportunity to spend a week-long residency at Meridians at Smith College the following Fall or Spring.
ELIGIBILITY:
The award is open to all genres, including: poetry, fiction, play scripts, and non-fiction. All submissions will be judged anonymously.
Works engaging with feminism, race, and transnationalism will be prioritized. Translated works and manuscripts in languages other than English are encouraged as well.
We only accept previously unpublished work for publication. We only accept one submission for entry to the EACWA contest. Simultaneous submissions will not be considered.
POETRY
Manuscripts of 3-5 poems should be typed and formatted according to genre conventions. Please include all poems in one document.
FICTION AND NON-FICTION
Prose and non-fiction manuscripts should be typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman font, and no longer than 7,000 words.
PLAY SCRIPTS
Play scripts should be typed, Times New Roman font, and no more than 5,000 words.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
- No identifying information or contact information on the manuscript itself.
- All submissions for the award must be submitted through our Google form. E-mailed and/or mailed hard copy submissions for the award will NOT be considered.
- Please attach your submission as a PDF
Please make sure your submissions has the following:
- Title on the manuscript
- Double-spaced (unless poetry or play which may utilize whatever formatting is necessary)
- 1-inch margins (unless poetry which may utilize whatever margins are necessary)
- 12-point, Times New Roman font (or similar, with exceptions for poetry submissions, translations, and plays which may require differing fonts)
- Include page numbers if work exceeds one page
AWARD REVIEW PROCESS:
All submissions will undergo preliminary review by the Meridians editorial staff, and finalists will be reviewed double-anonymously by members of the Meridians Creative Writing Advisory Board and by readers with expertise in each genre.
Winners will be notified in February 2026.
2026 Award Winners
Prose Winner
Diyora Kabilova – “Mouth of the Unburied”
Diyora Kabilova is a writer based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. She is drawn to stories where bureaucracy, place, and memory collide. Her work follows the quiet mechanics of belonging—what gets recorded, what gets missed, and what survives anyway. She writes fiction and essays that move between intimacy and systems, keeping the sentence clean and the feeling sharp. The CWAB described “Mouth of the Unburied” as “a profound, luminous prose work that carries the cadence and lyric intensity of poetry, its language generating a powerful gravitational pull that draws the reader into an emotional orbit while revealing a fiercely alert, searching mind at work.”
Prose Honorable Mention
Nanya Agrawal – “Slut”
Featured in Variety’s “100 Writers to Watch” (2015), Nayna Agrawal is a former NYC analyst, a former DC policy writer, a former international aid director, and a former touring dancer. Her plays have been staged and produced in numerous cities. Recently, her plays have been presented at the Signature Theater in DC, StudioTenn in Nashville, and The Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha. Currently, she is an O’Neill semi-finalist, a Boise Contemporary Theater finalist, and a winner of a Vermont Studio Center residency, all for her play, Brad Pitt’s My Bitch.
Nayna is an alumna of the Unlock Her Potential initiative (2022), The Salon initiative (2021), Disney ABC TV Writers Program (2019) and the Sesame Street Writers Program (2018). She has written for Disney, ABC, Netflix, DreamWorks, Mattel and won a development deal with Sesame Street. Recent credits include ABC’s The Baker and The Beauty, Disney’s Encanto, an upcoming Disney film, and a Netflix live-action YA fantasy show.
Raised in Virginia and India, Nayna has studied five languages, visited 22 countries, and worked across four industries. She received her BS in Economics and English at the University of Virginia, and her MFA at Northwestern University. The CWAB praised “Slut” for offering “an interesting look at assimilation and resistance of assimilation; cultural expectations and intergenerational dialogue.”
Poetry Winner
Rajendra Prasad Gupta – “Stratigraphy of the Throat“
Rajendra Prasad Gupta is a writer, poet, and storyteller from Garhani (Bhojpur), Bihar, India. His work captures the struggles, hopes, and human emotions of everyday life. He believe that words have the power to inspire change, so through every line he writes, he strives to spark reflection and a sense of connection. The CWAB praised how “Stratigraphy of the Throat” demonstrates “being an immigrant or being a refugee in another linguistic world.”
Poetry Honorable Mention
Hana Widerman – “The Dream of the Red Pickup Truck“
Born to a Japanese mother and an American father, Hana Widerman graduated from Princeton University and Cornell University, where she received her MFA and works as a lecturer. She is the 2025 winner of the Southern Humanities Review’s Auburn Witness Poetry Prize and has received support from the Saltonstall Foundation and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Workshop. You can find her poetry in The Threepenny Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.
About Elizabeth Alexander
Elizabeth Alexander is a prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author, renowned poet, educator, scholar, and cultural advocate. She is also president of the Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest funder in the arts, culture, and humanities.
Dr. Alexander’s most recent book, The Trayvon Generation (2022), is a galvanizing meditation on the power of art and culture to illuminate America’s unresolved problem with race and the challenges facing young Black America. Among the fifteen books she has authored or co-authored, her poetry collection American Sublime was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2006, and her memoir, The Light of the World, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2015. Other works include Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990–2010 (2010), Power and Possibility: Essays, Reviews, Interviews (2007), The Black Interior: Essays (2004), Antebellum Dream Book (2001), Body of Life (1996), and The Venus Hottentot (1990).
Over the course of an esteemed career in education, Dr. Alexander has held distinguished professorships at Smith College, Columbia University, and Yale University, where she taught for fifteen years and chaired the African American Studies Department. She has been awarded the Jackson Poetry Prize, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the George Kent Award, the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and three Pushcart Prizes for Poetry. Notably, Dr. Alexander composed and delivered “Praise Song for the Day” for the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Dr. Alexander is Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She also serves on the Pulitzer Prize Board, and co-designed the Art for Justice Fund.
Please visit Dr. Alexander’s personal website for more information.