CHESTERTOWN — Tonight, one of six finalists will be awarded Washington College’s Sophie Kerr Prize as the graduating senior demonstrating the best potential for future achievement in a literary endeavor.
It’s the largest undergraduate literary prize in the country — this year valued at $86,702, more than the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award combined.
The prize winner will be announced Friday night, May 15 as the culmination of a ceremony in the Hotchkiss Recital Hall of the Gibson Center for the Arts on the college campus.
Each of the finalists will read from their work.
The event, which begins at 7:30 p.m., is open to the public.
It also will be livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/live/swGU09pfbyo?si=NgEutvQw8LfCHKbx.
The prize, now in its 59th year, is named for Eastern Shore native and Washington College benefactor Sophie Kerr, who published more than 20 novels and hundreds of short stories.
As stipulated by Kerr’s will, the prize check itself will be awarded Sunday as part of the college’s 243rd commencement.
Five of the finalists are from Maryland, and the sixth is from New Jersey. Their portfolios include examinations of the forces of attraction, explorations of loneliness and morality, and themes of young adulthood, grief and race.
The 2026 finalists are listed here, alphabetically.
• Jaya S. Basu of Bethesda is a theater and English double major with a creative writing minor. Their portfolio contains poetry, fiction, nonfiction and playwriting, and explores the forces of attraction that govern the universe and act on all bodies.
• Jove DiFiore Gleason of Silver Spring is an English major with minors in medieval and early modern studies and creative writing. His portfolio includes published and unpublished works of poetry, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, and excerpts from a novella and his undergraduate thesis.
• Seth Horan of Frederick County is an English and communication and media studies double major with a double minor in creative writing and journalism, editing and publishing. His portfolio, titled “Spring and Winter,” includes four experimental short stories communing with the space between loneliness and morality.
• Evelyn Lee Lucado of Westminster is an English major with minors in creative writing and journalism, editing and publishing. Their portfolio includes a collection of poems, prose, journalistic articles and academic writing themed around young adulthood, grief and family.
• Logan Monteleone of Upper Township, New Jersey is an English major with a minor in journalism, editing and publishing. Her portfolio is a small collection of personal poems, many of which include metaphors on nature.
• Sheri Swayne of Baltimore is an English major and creative writing minor. Her portfolio includes creative nonfiction pieces, critical essays and spoken word poems centered around race and race topics.
“Reading their work, the committee was impressed with the delight these writers take in lyricism, and in language’s ability to reach past the surface and delve deep for hard and important truths,” said James Allen Hall, director of the Washington College Rose O’Neill Literary House and associate professor of English.
Hall described the collection of work as “devoted, crystal clear in vision, and as possessing the belief that writing offers the world a balm.”
Sean Meehan, associate dean for curricular innovations and English department co-chair, added, “The Sophie Kerr portfolios always display a variety of excellent writing from students with a broad range of literary interests. It’s a hallmark of our programs at Washington College: good writing is composed across campus. That was the case this year, but the committee was particularly impressed by the strength of that variety. There is an urgency that comes through in the work of these finalists that demonstrates not just the promise of these young writers for their future work but also its purpose and need in our world today.”
Tonight’s keynote speaker is Wiley Cash, a New York Times best-selling author versed in Southern history, mystery and family drama who is currently serving as Washington College’s Patrick Henry Fellow.
In November, Cash was the recipient of the 2025 North Carolina Award for Literature, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the state of North Carolina. The award, presented by Gov. Josh Stein, recognizes Cash’s significant contributions to literature and his focus on Southern life.
