News Release
April 2002

Lebensfeld Prize Winners Announced

(Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) - Moravian College recently announced the winners of this year's spring 2002 semester's Upper-Division Lebensfeld Prizes for the Best Essay, Short Story, and Poem. Best Upper-Division Essay resulted in a tie between Lauren Schwetje for "MysTori: The Prophet Amos" and Jake Hallman for "Reality Bites--and Freakin' Hard." Sara Rafferty received Honorable Mention for "The Changing Image of Augustus." Best Short Story was presented to Bill Trub for "Figs," while Christina Binder earned Honorable Mention for "Through Jewel's Eyes." Kathleen Gaige won best poem for "Oracle." These prize winners are selected by a team of Moravian College alumni who work in the fields of writing, publishing, and communications.

Previous winners include:

The Lebensfeld Prize for Best Writing 100 Essay for fall semester 2001 was shared between Adam Spaugh for "The Art of Life" and Sara Suleman for "Picture of my Grandmother." Megan McKee earned Honorable Mention for her essay "Beauty vs. Brutality."

Best Upper-Division Essay for spring semester 2001 was shared between Yasmin Arastu for "Lighting the Oil Lamp" and Jill Wagner for "Life between Covers." Best Short Story went to Amber Barron for "Chest Pains." Michelle Kane earned Honorable Mention for "Shadow Boxing." Kane also won Best Poem for "A Handful of Jokers." Honorable Mention went to Kristy Bredin for "A Norman Rockwell Life" and Lara Mammana for "I Remember."

Sara Fiske's essay "Love or Life?" was selected for the Lebensfeld Prize for Best Writing 100 Essay for spring semester 2001. Honorable Mention went to Amy Lawrence for "Learning 'Respect' through Diversity" and Zachary Nicolai for "It Still Does."

The Best Writing 100 Essay for fall semester 2000 was won by Jessica Salter for "Breaking through the Brick Wall."

The Lebensfeld Prize is sponsored by the Moravian College Writing Center and funded through the support of the Lebensfeld Foundation of Jersey City, New Jersey. Prizes are awarded each year for both the fall and spring semesters for the Best Writing 100 Essays. Faculty members who teach Writing 100 in the spring and fall semesters select the winning essays. All essays are then "published" in a collection called THE BEST WRITING 100 ESSAYS and a cash prize of $50 is also awarded to the student winner. The prize-winning works will also appear on the Moravian College Writing Center's Web page (accessible through the English Department Web page) soon.