Teachers & Writers Collaborative

2009 Bechtel Prize Winner and Finalists

Teachers & Writers Collaborative is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2009 Bechtel Prize and the finalists for the award.

2009 Bechtel Prize Winner
Emily Raboteau, New York, NY: “Jazz Poetry”

2009 Bechtel Prize Finalists
Marcia Chamberlain, Houston, TX: “When You Listen Deeply”
Garth Greenwell, New York, NY: “Reading with the Voice”

The 2010 Bechtel Prize

Since 2004, Teachers & Writers Collaborative (T&W) has honored the author of an exemplary essay on literary arts education with the annual Bechtel Prize. Submissions for the award address important issues in creative writing education and/or literary studies.

The 2010 Bechtel Prize will be judged by Phillip Lopate. Lopate has written three personal essay collections, two novels, two poetry collections, a collection of film criticism, and Being with Children, a memoir of his work with T&W as a writer in the schools. He is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a New York Public Library Center for Scholars and Writers Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, and two New York Foundation for the Arts grants. He holds the John Cranford Adams Chair at Hofstra University, and also teaches in the MFA graduate programs at Columbia, the New School and Bennington College. Lopate serves on the T&W Board of Directors.

The essay selected to receive the Bechtel Prize appears in Teachers & Writers magazine and on the T&W website, and the author receives a $1,000 honorarium. Honoraria totaling $500 are shared by the authors of entries selected as finalists for the prize, which may also be published in Teachers & Writers.

Possible topics for Bechtel Prize submissions include contemporary issues in classroom teaching, innovative approaches to teaching literary forms and genres, and the intersection between literature and imaginative writing. The previous winners of the Bechtel Prize can be found here.

Selection criteria for the Bechtel Prize include the essay’s relevance and appropriateness for readers of Teachers & Writers magazine, most of whom teach at the elementary, secondary, or postsecondary level. Teachers & Writers publishes work that is concise, lively, and geared to a general audience. Prospective entrants for the Bechtel Prize are encouraged to review a sample issue of Teachers & Writers to familiarize themselves with the magazine’s style. Click here to order a sample issue of the magazine for $5.00.

The submission deadline for the 2010 Bechtel Prize is 5:00 PM (Eastern), Wednesday, June 30, 2010. Please refer to the submission guidelines below for additional information.

2010 Bechtel Prize Submission Guidelines

• Entry fee: $20 for each entry (make checks payable to Teachers & Writers Collaborative). Each fee entitles the entrant to a new one-year subscription to Teachers & Writers or a one-year extension of a current subscription. Please indicate your choice and include a complete address for subscriptions.

• Submissions should relate to creative writing education and/or literary studies.

• Submissions must be previously unpublished and under 5,000 words in length.

• Submissions must be typed, paginated, and double-spaced.

• Submissions will be judged anonymously. The author’s name and address must not appear anywhere on the essay/article.

• Two copies of the entry must be submitted. One copy should include a cover page with the following information: the author’s name, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone number, the title of the submission, and where the author learned about the Bechtel Prize. The other copy should include a cover page with only the title.

• Authors of the Bechtel Prize winner and finalists must permit T&W to publish their submissions in Teachers & Writers magazine. The winner must permit T&W to publish the essay on the T&W website. T&W reserves the right to edit the submissions for publication.

• Please mail entries to The Bechtel Prize, Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 520 Eighth Ave., Ste. 2020, New York, NY 10018. Entries may be delivered to T&W between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday. Submissions will not be accepted via e-mail or fax.

• Submissions must be received by 5:00 PM (Eastern), Wednesday, June 30, 2010.

• Submissions that do not conform to the above guidelines will not be reviewed for the Bechtel Prize.

• Submissions will not be returned to the authors.

Questions regarding the Bechtel Prize should be directed to bechtel.

Support for the Bechtel Prize

To make a contribution to support the Bechtel Prize or Teachers & Writers magazine, please contact Loyal Miles, T&W director of development and marketing, at 212-691-6590, e-mail.

2009 Bechtel Prize

Winner

Emily Raboteau, New York, NY, “Jazz Poetry”

Finalists

Marcia Chamberlain, Houston, TX, “When You Listen Deeply”

Garth Greenwell, New York, NY, “Reading with the Voice”

Emily Raboteau’s prize-winning essay will appear in the Winter issue of Teachers & Writers and will be posted on this website in December. Previous winners of the Bechtel Prize may be found here.

Louise Bechtel and Support for the Bechtel Prize

The Bechtel Prize is endowed by the Cerimon Fund in honor of Louise Seaman Bechtel (1894-1985). Editor-critic, author, and teacher of young children, Bechtel was the first person to head a juvenile book department established by an American publishing house. During her fifteen-year tenure as managing editor at the Macmillan Company (1919-1934), Bechtel shepherded production of more than 600 new books, marking a milestone in the growth and development of American literature for children. “Louise Seaman Bechtel had a contagious conviction of the importance of books for children,” said her close contemporary Virginia Haviland.

A noted critic, Bechtel was the children’s book review editor for the New York Herald Tribune from 1949 to 1957, and a frequent contributor to the Saturday Review and the New York Times. During her long career, Bechtel also amassed an incomparable collection of children’s books. Her collection (later donated to Vassar College and the University of Florida) exceeded 3,500 volumes, among them rare folk tales; Asian and African legends; Greek mythology; Aesop’s fables; tales from Shakespeare; and the work of early 20th century book illustrators such as Arther Rackham, Kate Greenaway, and Boris Artzybasheff.