Levis Reading Prize
VCU Department of English

	We Don't Know We Don't Know  Nick Lantz

The Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University is pleased to announce The 2011 Levis Reading Prize has been awarded to Nick Lantz for his collection We Don’t Know We Don’t Know, published by Graywolf Press.

This year the Prize committee would also like to recognize two finalists, Nicky Beer for her collection The Diminishing House (Carnegie Mellon, 2010) and Daniel Johnson for How to Catch a Falling Knife (Alice James, 2010).

Previous prizes have gone to Peter Campion for his collection The Lions, Katie Ford for Colosseum, Matthew Donovan for Vellum, Joshua Weiner for From the Book of Giants, Ron Slate for The Incentive of the Maggot, Spencer Reece for The Clerk's Tale, David Daniel for Seven-Star Bird, Susan Aizenberg for Muse, Steve Scafidi for Sparks from a Nine-Pound Hammer, Nick Flynn for Some Ether, Joel Brouwer for Exactly What Happened, Sandra Alcosser for Except by Nature, and Belle Waring for Dark Blonde.

In memory of Larry Levis, the distinguished poet and teacher who was our colleague until his untimely death in 1996, the Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University aims to encourage poets early in their careers by sponsoring an annual award for the best first or second book of poetry. Now with over a decade of wiiners, the award continues to raise the cultural appreciation of great poetry while advancing the careers of emerging writers.

The Levis Reading Prize is presented on behalf of VCU's MFA in Creative Writing Program. Sponsors include the VCU Department of English, James Branch Cabell Library Associates, Friends of the Library, the VCU Libraries, the VCU Honors College, Barnes & Noble @ VCU Bookstore, the VCU College of Humanities and Sciences, with additional funding provide by the family of Larry Levis.

Entries may be submitted by either author or publisher, and must include three copies of the book (48 pages or more), a cover letter, and a brief biography of the author including previous publications. (Entries from vanity presses are not eligible.) The book must have been published in the previous calendar year. Entrants wishing acknowledgment of receipt must include a self-addressed stamped postcard.

The annual entry deadline is January 15th. Materials received after that date will be returned unopened. Because we cannot guarantee their return, all entries will become the property of the VCU Department of English.

Judges come from faculty of the VCU Department of English and MFA Program in Creative Writing.

The winner receives an honorarium of $1500 and are invited, expenses paid, to Richmond to present a public reading in the following fall.

To enter, please send materials to:

Levis Reading Prize
VCU Department of English
900 Park Avenue, Hibbs Hall, Room 306
P.O. Box 842005
Richmond, VA 23284-2005

For further information, contact Emilia Philips, Levis Fellow: phillipsea3@vcu.edu