This scholarship is made possible from an endowment by William and Donna Early in memory of their son, a poet, Kevin T. Early. It awards $2000 to a student with freshman standing at UIUC for the 2020-2021 school year. The deadline for application is January 31, 2022.

We're starting this process early so we can get as many submissions as possible. For consideration, students must submit 5 poems via email to John Dudek. The complete submission should not exceed 5 pages (so 1 poem to a page). Submissions should be attached to the email as .docx (Word) files.

The subject line of the email should read: "EARLY PRIZE SUBMISSION: Last name."

The body of the email should include the student's name, address, phone number, e-mail, UIN, and the titles of the poems. The name should not appear on the entry file itself. If you have any questions, please email John Dudek.