Internships
Many English and Creative Writing students work at professional internship while completing their Hiram College education. English Department faculty members as well as the Hiram College Career Center help students with identifying and applying for internships at publishing companies, magazines and newspapers, and nonprofit organizations. Internships are also available with the Hiram Poetry Review, a national poetry journal published at Hiram College. The Dix Scholarship is available to students completing unpaid internships in the field of journalism.
Writing Assistantships
Hiram College’s strongest writers are invited to work as Writing Assistants in the Hiram College Writing Center and First-Year Seminar Program. As trained writing tutors, these students work closely with students and faculty members on improving writing across the campus. At many schools, such a teaching experience is only available on the graduate level.
Conferences and Publications
The English Department encourages students to submit their work to external conferences and publications. Faculty members provide guidance preparing abstracts and revising manuscripts. English students have recently presented papers at the National Undergraduate Literature Conference in Ogden, Utah, and at the Susquehanna University Undergraduate Literature and Creative Writing Conference. Creative Writing students have had their work accepted at journals including Beloit Poetry Journal, The Rambler, Warbler, and Whiskey Island. Writing students have also attended the Associated Writers and Writing Programs Conference.
Lindsay-Crane Book Series
The Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature inaugurated its book series with the publication of Hiram, U.S.A. in the fall of 2007. The book was authored and edited entirely Hiram College students with the guidance of Prof. Joyce Dyer. Future books in the series will offer students additional professional editing experiences.
Writing Contests
Annual Hiram College contests in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry recognize the best creative writing produced by our students. The Ralph and Marion G. Kroehle Foundation Award in Creative Nonfiction takes place each autumn while the Barbara Thompson Award in Short Fiction and the Vachel Lindsay Poetry Prize are awarded in the spring. Hiram students also regularly win prizes in the East Central Colleges (ECC) competitions in creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry; all ECC winners’ work is published in a collection.
Departmental Awards
Endowed departmental awards recognize students in the department who are doing outstanding work in the classroom but also contributing to the English Department through extracurricular activities and commitments. These awards are presented each spring at the English Department’s end-of-the-year celebration.
