Graduating from college is a standout achievement in anyone’s life. Graduating with a check for $77,000 for artistic promise borders on experiencing life in a parallel universe that bestows unimaginable gifts designed to shock the senses.
That’s what happened to Sophie Foster at Sunday’s Washington College Commencement as she received her diploma and a check for becoming the 2024 recipient of the Sophie Kerr Prize, an award given annually since 1968 to the senior showing “the most ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor.”
The award is the nation’s largest undergraduate writing prize.
Foster, from Reisterstown, Maryland, found Washington College’s creative writing milieu while attending the Rose O’Neil Literary House summer Cherry Tree Young Writers’ Conference, a weeklong immersion in creative writing workshops, and a glimpse into what the college offers to budding writers.
The poet says that her previous writing experiences in high school were too personally competitive, fracturing any sense of a shared writing community, and she became wary of duplicating that experience in college. At Washington College, she found what she was looking for.
“It has been the honor of my life to come here and be among the impossibly rare community I’ve been granted here,” she said during her acceptance speech Friday night.
Washington College News Service writes, “Lauded by her professors as one of the strongest editors and literary citizens at Washington College, Foster has been praised for her consistent encouragement and support of her fellow writers. An English major minoring in creative writing and journalism, editing and publishing, Foster has been editor-in-chief of the College’s literary magazine, president of the on-campus Writers’ Union, and opinion editor of the school newspaper.”
For more about Sophie Foster, see the Spy article here.
The Spy caught up with Sophie Foster the day after the award was presented.
This video is approximately five minutes in length.
