Winners of the 2024 Neureuther Essay Contest

The Washington University Libraries are pleased to announce the winners of the 37th annual Neureuther Student Book Collection Essay Competition. Named for Carl Neureuther, a 1940 graduate of the Washington University School of Business who set up an endowed book fund for the University Libraries, the contest was designed to inspire reading for pleasure among students and to encourage the development of personal book collections.

The competition is open to all full-time Washington University students, and awardees win four cash prizes of $1000 and $500 at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Participants submit brief essays about the books in their collections. Washington University faculty read the essays to select the award-winning entries.

undergraduate student winners

In the undergraduate category, Brooke Sanchez, a first-year student majoring in political science, was awarded the first prize for her essay, “Unveiling the Comfort of Female Narratives: Tragedy, Identity, and Embodied Power.” Eliana Jenkins, a senior majoring in global studies and writing, won the second prize for her essay, “A Lust Letter to Print: Understanding Human Carnality Through the Zines of the World.”

graduate student winners

Perry Parsons, an MA student in theatre and performance studies, won the first prize in the graduate category for the essay, “My Culture of One; Eight Relational Dances With My Books.” Nicholas Dolan, a PhD student in English and American literature, won the second prize for his essay, “My Mother’s Planned Parenthood: A Book Sale Elegy.”

The organizing committee thanks all the students who participated in this year’s contest. Neureuther competition’s award-winning essays, from 2003 to the present, can be accessed on Open Scholarship.