Young Writers’ Rewards

THE judges of the Young Writers’ Competition have finally, as we announced last issue (page 12), met en banc, compared notes, and come up with a verdict. The winner is Adam Lieberman of Brooklyn, N.Y; the runners-up, Howard Hogan of Washington, D.C., and Rich Lowry of Arlington, Va. In due course we will be publishing Mr. Lieberman’s piece, which describes a practical attempt to help the homeless, and how it went awry. Mr. Hogan wrote on how congressmen are insulated from real life, and Mr. Lowry on Governor Wilder as Machiavellian.

Before we get to the honorable mentions, a few general comments. The most successful papers, by and large, were the most reportorial. This should not be surprising: even for professional writers, it is more difficult to say something both fresh and coherent at a theoretical level than to write about something specific that has occurred; youth adds to the difficulty, since the young writer will have a narrower range of experience on which to draw. John Keats could have won a contest like ours writing on “negative capability,” but few 25-years-olds have developed that sharpness of philosophical insight.

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THE judges of the Young Writers’ Competition have finally, as we announced last issue (page 12), met en banc, compared notes, and come up with a verdict. The winner is Adam Lieberman of Brooklyn, N.Y; the runners-up, Howard Hogan of Washington, D.C., and Rich Lowry of Arlington, Va. In due course we will be publishing Mr. Lieberman’s piece, which describes a practical attempt to help the homeless, and how it went awry. Mr. Hogan wrote on how congressmen are insulated from real life, and Mr. Lowry on Governor Wilder as Machiavellian.

Before we get to the honorable mentions, a few general comments. The most successful papers, by and large, were the most reportorial. This should not be surprising: even for professional writers, it is more difficult to say something both fresh and coherent at a theoretical level than to write about something specific that has occurred; youth adds to the difficulty, since the young writer will have a narrower range of experience on which to draw. John Keats could have won a contest like ours writing on “negative capability,” but few 25-years-olds have developed that sharpness of philosophical insight.