Pollard Memorial Library Foundation
Elinor Lipman Award for Writing
The Pollard Memorial Library Foundation is delighted to announce that submissions will soon be open for the second Elinor Lipman Award for Writing. Â 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. Â Submissions open February 13th and are welcome on or before 11:59 pm EDT, May 19, 2023. Â See below for complete eligibility and submission guidelines.
The Pollard Memorial Library Foundation
The Pollard Memorial Library Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that raises funds to supplement the budget provided by the City of Lowell to the Pollard Memorial Library, Lowell’s public library. This additional funding helps ensure that the Library achieves its goal of excellence in providing service to Lowell residents.
The Foundation created the Lipman Award to encourage Lowell’s residents and college students from various age groups, backgrounds, cultures, ethnic groups and neighborhoods to share their fiction and creative nonfiction work.
Elinor Lipman Award for Writing
The Pollard Memorial Library Foundation has established The Elinor Lipman Award for Writing, a competition for fiction and creative nonfiction written by a current resident of Lowell, a current student of the University of Massachusetts Lowell or a current student of Middlesex Community College. The first annual award was bestowed in 2022 to Lillian-Yvonne Bertram.
The award pays tribute to the work of Lowell native Elinor Lipman, author of numerous novels, stories, essays and poetry for which she has received the New England Book Award for fiction, a lifetime achievement award from the New England Library Information Network, and the Paterson Fiction Prize of the Poetry Center.
The Lipman Award recognizes the importance of literacy and learning in the City of Lowell and the lives of its residents.
The Lipman Award has been funded by a generous donation from Loom Press to the Pollard Memorial Library Foundation.
2023 Judges
Elinor Lipman, Lead Judge
Elinor Lipman, born in Lowell and a graduate of Lowell High School, writes novels, stories, and essays, for which she has received the New England Book Award for fiction, a lifetime achievement award from the New England Library and Information Network, and the Paterson Fiction Prize of the Poetry Center. Elinor has served as the Elizabeth Drew chair in Creative Writing at Smith College in 2011-2012 and has been a fiction judge for both the National Book Award and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her recent books include Rachel to the Rescue, Good Riddance, and On Turpentine Lane. In 2008, her novel Then She Found Me was made into a film starring Helen Hunt and Bette Midler. Her most recent novel, Ms. Demeanor, was recently shared at the Library to patrons’ delight.
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Judge
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is an Associate Professor of English, Africana Studies, and Art & Design at Northeastern University. They are the author of Travesty Generator, a book of computational poetry that received the Poetry Society of America’s 2020 Anna Rabinowitz prize for interdisciplinary work and longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry. Their other poetry books include How Narrow My Escapes, Personal Science, a slice from the cake made of air, and But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise.
Pilar Garcia-Brown, Judge
Pilar Garcia-Brown is a Senior Editor at Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Previously, she worked at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for seven years. She concentrates on fiction in multiple categories, as well as the occasional narrative nonfiction. Recent and forthcoming titles include: the instant New York Times bestseller Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour; Yes, Daddy by Jonathan Parks-Ramage; The Very Nice Box by Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman; All Day is a Long Time by David Sanchez; In Sensorium by TanaĂŻs; and NBCC award winner You Play the Girl by Carina Chocano, among others. She is a mentor through the Representation Matters Mentorship Program and was co-chair of the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Fete Committee. She’s from Los Angeles and lives in Brooklyn.
Contact
For any questions, please email LipmanAward@gmail.com.