Nora Magid Mentorship Prize awardedThe Nora Magid Mentorship Prize for 2006 has been awarded to Melody Joy Kramer.
A Penn senior studying Creative Writing and the History and Sociology of Science, Kramer has been an intern at Esquire magazine (where she has also done some freelance writing), and was an award-winning columnist for the Daily Pennsylvanian. Her DP columns won the Columbia Gold Circle prize for best college column in the country, and she was also a finalist for the National Society of Newspaper Columnists college columnist of the year prize.
Kramer is a clever, engaging writer of both newspaper columns and magazine features, and has a rare ability to bring her strong voice and reporting skills to subjects serious and comic, public and personal. She clearly has the passion, heart and humor that Nora Magid so valued in non-fiction writers. A Cherry Hill native and graduate of Cherry Hill High School East, Kramer transferred to Penn from the University of Rochester, but immediately made up for lost time by getting involved in the DP, the Penn Band (where she plays trumpet and trombone), and college humor writing (she was editor of Punch Bowl magazine and wrote for collegehumor.com). She also served as a Peer Writing Tutor at the Center for Contemporary Writing and a research assistant at the Annenberg Rare Books Library.
While Melody Kramer's mentorship will begin immediately, she will receive her award at a luncheon in New York which is being organized for early March.
Our thanks to all the Penn seniors who applied for the award this year, to the Penn faculty who wrote recommendations, and to everyone who has generously supported the prize fund.
About the Prize: Nora Magid was an extraordinarily gifted and giving teacher of non-fiction writing at the University of Pennsylvania from the mid-1970s until her death in 1991. During those years, she nurtured an amazing number of students, many of whom went on to some of the top jobs in magazines, newspapers and book publishing. In 2003, a group of "Nora-ites" came together to create The Nora Magid Mentorship Prize, which is now given every year to a senior at the University of Pennsylvania who shows exceptional ability and promise in non-fiction writing and editing, and who would benefit most from combined mentorship of Nora's network of former students and their colleagues. The prize is $1000, which is used as a stipend for transportation, lodging and meals as the student travels to New York, Washington and elsewhere to develop professional contacts at magazines, newspapers, publishing houses and broadcast networks.
To make a tax-deductible donation to support the prize go to www.philafound.org and click on "donate online." You'll see the prize listed at the top, or just scroll down until you see Nora's picture
If you have any questions visit our website at http://www.NoraPrize.com.
The Nora Magid Mentorship Fund scholarship committee is:
Stephen Fried, stephenfried@comcast.net, 215-592-1662
Eliot Kaplan, ekaplan@hearst.com, 212-649-2064
Miriam Arond, editor-in-chief, Child Magazine
Barri Bernstein, executive director, Tennessee Bar Foundation
David Borgenicht, owner and publisher, Quirk Books, author
Sandee Brawarsky, author, book columnist, The Jewish Week
Jean Sherman Chatzky, author, financial columnist, Money Magazine & Today Show
Lisa DePaulo, writer-at-large, GQ
Stefan Fatsis, author, sports columnist, Wall Street Journal & National Public Radio
Loren Feldman, editorial director, Inc. magazine
John Prendergast, editor-in-chief, Pennsylvania Gazette
Joel Siegel, writer and senior editor, ABC's "World News Tonight"