The nation's largest nonprofit organization serving creative writers is recognizing Kwame Dawes, professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner, for his commitment to his fellow writers.
New York-based Poets & Writers has named Dawes as a recipient of the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award. The award recognizes writers who have given generously to other writers or to the broader literary community.
Dawes will accept his award in March at Poets & Writers' awards ceremony, where he has been asked to speak about why he has chosen to help other writers and how other writers benefit from the work he does.
Dawes joined the UNL faculty in the fall and took the helm of the Prairie Schooner, UNL's quarterly literary magazine. He is the author of 19 poetry collections, three works of fiction, several books of literary criticism and aesthetics, four anthologies and several produced plays. His long list of accomplishments includes a 2009 Emmy Award for a multimedia documentary project on HIV/AIDS in Jamaica.
— Jean Ortiz Jones, University Communications