Pollard Memorial Library Foundation
Elinor Lipman Award for Writing

The Pollard Memorial Library Foundation is delighted to sponsor the annual Elinor Lipman Award for Writing.  This award honors Elinor Lipman, a distinguished, prolific and much-loved author born and raised in Lowell, by awarding a prize of $1,000 for a work of fiction or creative nonfiction written by a Lowell-based author.

Lowell Library Foundation Announces Winner of 2025 Elinor Lipman Award – Julia Magee!

The Pollard Memorial Library Foundation is delighted to announce that the winner of the fourth Elinor Lipman Award for Writing is Julia Magee, a student at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and a resident of Westford, MA. The Lipman Award will be presented on Thursday, October 30, at 6:30 p.m., in the Community Room of the Pollard Memorial Library.

This annual award honors Elinor Lipman, a distinguished, prolific, and much-loved author born and raised in Lowell, by awarding a prize of $1,000 for a work of fiction or creative non-fiction written by a Lowell resident or a student at Middlesex Community College or the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. This year, 37 submissions were reviewed in a blinded manner by the judges: Elinor Lipman; literary editor Pilar Garcia-Brown; and the 2022 Lipman Award winner, poet Lillian-Yvonne Bertram. For more information about the judges, please see: https://lowelllibrary.org/get-involved/foundation/elinor-lipman-award/.

The judges selected the story entitled “A Little Less than Halfway to Boiling” by Julia Magee. Ms. Lipman commented on the work, “Julia’s story was the unanimous choice of we three judges. A particularly winning aspect was her creation of a first-person narrator who is quirky, increasingly loopy, yet a smart and entirely sympathetic character.”

The Lipman Award recognizes the importance of literacy and learning in the City of Lowell for the lives of its residents. The prize was established through a generous donation by Loom Press and is now funded by the Pollard Memorial Library Foundation.

Past Winners

2022
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, winner of the 2022 Elinor Lipman Award for Writing
Stephen O’Connor, Distinguished Mention

2023
Ben Morrison, winner of the 2023 Elinor Lipman Award for Writing
Ashley Rose Rivera, Distinguished Mention

2024
Chance Lee, winner of the 2024 Elinor Lipman Award for Writing
Sally L. DeAngelis, Distinguished Mention

Julia with former honorees Chance Lee (2024) and Stephen O’Connor (2022 – Distinguished Mention)