Melanie Cornejo and Dawn Megli receive CLU's top literary prizes

THOUSAND OAKS, CA (06/06/2011)(readMedia)-- Melanie Cornejo of Santa Maria and Dawn Megli of Newbury Park have received California Lutheran University's top literary prizes.

Cornejo, a junior English major, received the $1,000 Mark Van Doren Poetry Prize for a selection of poems she had submitted. Former English professor Jack Ledbetter awarded the first Poetry Prize in 1972, making it CLU's longest-running scholarship. It became an endowed scholarship through donations from poet Mark Van Doren's sons, John and Charles Van Doren. Mark Van Doren, who received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1940, had read his poetry at CLU in 1971 and called it one of the bright spots in his career.

English Department faculty awarded Megli, a senior English major, the $500 Ledbetter Prize for Excellence in Writing for her collection of vignettes titled "Savage Hearth Suite." The award, named in honor of the professor emeritus, is given annually to an English major for the best work in any literary genre.

CLU is a selective university located in Thousand Oaks, with Adult Degree Evening Program and graduate centers in Oxnard and Woodland Hills. With an enrollment of 3,900 students, CLU offers 36 undergraduate majors and graduate programs within the College of Arts and Sciences, School of Management and Graduate School of Education. Doctoral degrees in educational leadership, higher education leadership and clinical psychology are also offered. Members of the CLU student body come from across the nation and around the world and represent a diversity of faiths and cultures. For more information, please visit http://www.callutheran.edu.