UNH Today

Brian Evans-Jones, Poetry MFA 2016, has won the poetry section of the 2017 Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers. The prestigious award, which aims to provide promising writers a network for professional advancement, has helped to launch the careers of Sue Monk Kidd (The Invention of Wings, The Secret Life of Bees), Elaine Beale (Another Life Altogether), Sandra Beasley (Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl), David Mura (Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei), Fae Myenne Ng (Bone), Mona Simpson (My Hollywood), and others. 

Each year, Poets & Writers selects one state (or Washington, D.C.), and invites writers from that jurisdiction to apply for the Writers Exchange Award (WEX). For 2017, the state of Maine was chosen. In October, Brian will travel to New York City with the fiction winner, Joan Dempsey, all expenses paid, to meet with editors, agents, publishers, and others in the literary community. In addition, they will each received a $500 honorarium and present a public reading in New York City, hosted by Poets & Writers. As a direct result of these meetings, past WEX winners have had their books published, received fellowships, secured teaching positions, and laid the groundwork for their professional lives as writers. The winners are also invited  to participate in a one-month residency at the Jentel Artist Residency Program in Wyoming. 

The poetry judge, Cynthia Cruz, said about Brian’s poems: “These are poems that tell the truth. Brave and beautiful, they show the world as it is—in its incredible and breathtaking entirety.” The winning poems can be read at https://www.pw.org/files/wex_brian_evans-jones_poetry_manuscript.pdf.

Brian immigrated to southern Maine from Hampshire, England, in 2014. He received his B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Warwick, U.K., and was poet laureate of Hampshire, U.K., in 2013–2014. He is a juried teaching artist in both Maine and New Hampshire, and teaches poetry and creative writing in schools, colleges, and community venues in both states.