Washington College's Erica Walburg Named a Sophie Kerr Finalist

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Sophie Kerr Finalist Erica Walburg

CHESTERTOWN, MD (05/07/2012)(readMedia)-- Washington College is pleased to announce that Erica Walburg '12, daughter of Leslie Southerland and Joe Walburg of Pewaukee, WI, is one of five finalists for the famous Sophie Kerr Prize, the largest undergraduate literary prize in the nation, this year valued at more than $58,000.

Walburg is a double major in English and Studio Art with a minor in Creative Writing. She is also a member of the Douglass Cater Society of Junior Fellows and the Sigma Tau Delta English Honors Society and has been involved in a number of campus activities, including acting in drama productions, singing with the Vocal Consort, serving as Vice President of the Writers' Union, and editing the Washington College Review, an annual liberal arts journal. She also interned for a summer at The American Scholar, the magazine published by Phi Beta Kappa. Walburg's portfolio includes parts of a novel, poetry and her thesis on the history and evolution of the graphic novel, which incorporates her research on Aristotle and Pulitzer-Prize winning graphic novelist Art Spiegelman. "Erica's work reflects her Midwestern roots and her interest in the marriage of the verbal and the visual," the committee said of her writing. "As she says in the introduction to her portfolio, she wants to return words to their basic function as visual symbols."

Walburg and the other four finalists, all graduating seniors who submitted portfolios of their writing to be judged, will travel to New York City for a special program and reception on May 15. There, in a private club in midtown Manhattan, they will read selections from their portfolios and then hold their breath as internationally renowned novelist Colum McCann announces the winner.

In holding the announcement ceremony in New York, the College acknowledges the importance of the city as the literary capital of the world and the personal journey of Prize benefactor Sophie Kerr. A native of Denton, MD, Kerr moved to New York as a young woman and built a successful 40-year career as a national magazine editor and writer. Her townhouse on East 38th Street became a literary salon for her friends in journalism and the arts. At her death, she bequeathed much of her estate to Washington College, with the stipulation that half its income would be awarded annually to the senior showing "the most ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor."

Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in colonial Chestertown on Maryland's Eastern Shore.