Hopwood awards honor students By Marta Brill Daily Staff Reporter Engineering first-year student Alissa Kass was hanging out with friends at a party when she heard a story that inspired her to take up her pen and write. The tale that emerged, which she titled "Keeping Anna," is the story of a young girl learning to live with the horrific scars caused by running through a plate-glass window. "Keeping Anna" - part of a collection of three short stories written by Kass - won an esteemed Hopwood Award in the category of underclassman fiction. The awards were presented yesterday afternoon by English Prof. Nicholos Delbanco at Rackham Auditorium. Following the award ceremony, fiction author Sue Miller read excerpts from her most recent work. Miller has written six novels, including "Inventing the Abbots" and "While I Was Gone." Miller "was very interesting. She writes about seemingly ordinary things, but the detail she uses to describe them is phenomenal," Kass said. Essay-winner Maggie Smith, an LSA first-year student, said she was "captivated" by Miller's reading and added that she enjoyed hearing an author read from her work, rather than give a lecture. "Nana," Smith's winning essay, was an account of how her grandmother's death profoundly affected her family. English Prof. Marjorie Levinson was one of the judges in the poetry section of the contest. She said the submissions this year covered a wide range of subjects and points of view. Levinson said she had a difficult time choosing the best collection of poetry from the submissions, but some poems stood out more than others in their "representation of thought." "I was drawn to wit, humor and a sophistication. Something other than an uncritical, unconscious emersion in their subject," Levinson said. In total, more than $5,600 was awarded to University students through the Hopwood contest. In the underclassman contest, first-year students or sophomores could win from $300 to $1,000 in the category of essay, fiction or poetry. Essay winners include Smith, LSA sophomore Jonathan Brenner, and LSA first-year student Ben Yan. In addition to Kass, LSA sophomore Eseohe Arhebamen, LSA first-year student Gordon Jimison and LSA sophomore Lindi Watts took home awards for their fiction writings. Poetry awards were given to LSA sophomores Kristi McGuire, Jane Fox and Cherisse Montgomery. Other awards given by the Hopwood Program at yesterday's ceremony included the Academy of American Poets Prize-Graduate, Academy of American Poets Prize-Undergraduate, the Bain-Swiggett Poetry Prize, the Michael Gutterman Award in Poetry, The Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship and the Louis and George Piranian Scholarship. Originally on page 1A in the 1-26-2000 issue of the Daily.