These prizes are awarded at the annual Creative Writing Awards ceremony each May. Please see the next section for submission details.
- The Sidney Cox Memorial Prize:
The Sidney Cox Memorial Prize is offered annually for that piece of undergraduate writing which most nearly meets those high standards of originality and integrity which Sidney Cox set for himself and for his students in his teaching and in his book, Indirections for Those Who Want to Write. Any kind of undergraduate writing in English may be submitted; there is no limit to the amount or variety of the material that any individual may submit; and the award is not limited to students majoring or minoring in English.
- Academy of American Poets Prize:
The Academy of American Poets Prize is offered for the best poem or group of poems.
- Jacobson-Laing Award in Poetry:
The Alexander Laing Memorial Writing Award will be given to an undergraduate for the "best manuscript of original poems."
- Lockwood Prize:
Competition for the Lockwood Prize is open to undergraduates classified as Junior. Any form of writing except plays may be submitted. A group of short poems may be considered as one manuscript.
- Grimes Prize:
Competition for the Grimes Prize is open to undergraduates classified as Senior. Any form of writing except plays may be submitted. A group of short poems may be considered as one manuscript.
- The William C. Spengemann Award in Writing:
The William C. Spengemann Award in Writing is given for a work of prose or poetry distinguished by its formal precision, as well as its original, innovative, or iconoclastic approach to its subject matter.
- The Mecklin Prize:
The Mecklin Prize is for the best student writing in creative nonfiction or journalism.
- The Erskine Caldwell Prize:
The Erskine Caldwell prize is awarded to a student(s) whose written work in the short story is most outstanding.