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Matt Ellsworth

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You'll find the Flinn Scholars community in every nook and cranny of the Internet.

For starters, visit the Flinn Foundation page on Facebook, follow @flinnscholars on Twitter, and--if you're a Scholar yourself--join the Scholars group on LinkedIn.

Want a quick answer to a burning question? You can reach me via email at mellsworth@flinn.org.

And who is this writing, anyway?

In 2007, I joined the Flinn Foundation's communications team, writing about all of the Foundation's initiatives, including the Flinn Scholars. in 2012, I became director of the Flinn Scholars program.

I'm also a Flinn Scholar alum myself, from the class of 1993. After my undergraduate years in Arizona, I completed an MFA in creative writing at George Mason University in Virginia. Now and then, I do type things not entirely true.

Feb 08, 2012
Matt_badge-author Matt Ellsworth

Alum adds another major poetry award

Tags: kate tufts discovery award, katherine larson, poetry

Flinn Scholar alumna Katherine Larson ('96) has had a big year.

Last March, Yale University Press published Katherine's first volume of poetry, Radial Symmetry, her reward for winning the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, the oldest annual literary award in the United States and a distinction not far short of winning the Pulitizer Prize.

Writing on the Paris Review Daily in May, Nicole Rudick summed up the collection well: "The natural world has never felt more physical, more alive with tiny movements and infinite textures." In a review for The Independent, Carrie Etter wrote, "Poem by poem, Radial Symmetry exhibits an extraordinary wakefulness, an immersion in nuance that enriches experience."

Now Katherine has been named winner of the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, given each year by the Claremont Graduate University "for a first book by a poet of genuine promise." A CGU news release continues:

"The Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards are among the most important prizes in all of the arts, and they lift our spirits year after year," Claremont Graduate University President Deborah Freund said. “My most heartfelt congratulations go out to Timothy and Katherine for their extraordinary books. It will be an honor to host these wonderful and creative talents when they visit our campus this spring."

A ceremony for this year's winners will be held on the campus of Claremont Graduate University at 5 p.m. on April 19. Author Maxine Hong Kingston will give special remarks.

As a Flinn Scholar, Katherine earned bachelor's degrees in creative writing and ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, then earned a master of fine arts degree in creative writing at the University of Virginia.