{"693940":{"#nid":"693940","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Alum\u0027s Gift Enables New Creative Writing Award Bearing Four $1,000 Prizes Open to All Georgia Tech Students","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech students with a flair for storytelling and the written word now have the chance to showcase their work and win a campus-wide award for it, thanks to a generous gift from Georgia Tech alum Joe Phillips.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPoetry@Tech\u2019s new \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/poetry.gatech.edu\/creative-writing-awards\/\u0022\u003ECarolyn Ann Dimsdale Phillips Creative Writing Award\u003C\/a\u003E is open to all currently enrolled Georgia Tech students. Students are encouraged to submit writing in multiple creative genres, including poetry, fiction, or nonfiction.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFour winners, each of whom will receive $1,000, will be announced in the Spring.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cPeople don\u2019t always recognize the connection between the arts and engineering. I thought this might let some people realize their creativity may go farther than just the technical,\u201d said Phillips, a 1975 Mechanical Engineering graduate who spent 35 years with Pratt \u0026amp; Whitney as a performance analysis engineer.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/iac.gatech.edu\/people\/person\/027c612b-b051-5070-8b6f-82567b014de8\u0022\u003EVictoria Chang\u003C\/a\u003E, the Margart T. and Henry C. Bourne Chair in Poetry in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/lmc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ESchool of Literature, Media, and Communication\u003C\/a\u003E in Georgia Tech\u2019s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts announced the awards at the Kenneth and Amy Knoespel Family Reading on Nov. 5.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019m so excited about this gift because I have been hoping to launch a campuswide creative writing award that incudes multiple genres since I arrived at Georgia Tech,\u201d she said. \u201cJoe Phillips\u2019s gift comes at the perfect time and enables us to expand our reach to the whole campus and more genres beyond poetry.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe awards are named in memory of Phillips\u2019 late wife, a teacher at St. Anthony\u2019s Catholic School whose writing long inspired Phillips.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe wrote often, mostly for personal reflection and creative therapy, but rarely finished her works, Phillips said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI always bugged her to finish them because I wanted to know how they ended,\u201d Phillips said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHer works include a children\u2019s fairy tale, an 8-chapter story about a mouse living in a WWI helmet stored in an attic, and historical fiction about a tarot reader facing church persecution.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI think Ann\u2019s writing is lovely,\u201d Chang said. \u201cWhat I enjoy about them is the whimsical quality which appears in her prose, especially,\u201d Chang said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe agrees with Phillips about the need for students from across Georgia Tech to explore creativity in writing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThey, like everyone else, have rich inner lives and life experiences. They experience passion, love, loss, and human connection, and exploring those themes in writing can help us all better understand what it means to be human and live in a challenging time.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPhilips previously created a similar writing competition at Appalachian State University, where Carolyn was an English major, before bringing the concept to Georgia Tech to help expand technical students\u0027 creative horizons.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe creative writing award joins the Thomas Lux Poetry Award in showcasing the talent of Georgia Tech student writers. That prize, offered annually since 2017, honors Georgia Tech student poets whose work demonstrates the dedication to craft and strong commitment to studying poetry, its techniques, and its traditions, as exemplified by Lux \u2014 the first Bourne Chair.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe reading at which the award was announced is the second named for Kenneth Knoespel, former LMC chair who retired in 2017, and his wife Amy, in honor of their continued support and a generous estate provision for \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/poetry.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EPoetry@Tech\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor more information about the awards, including how to submit your work, visit the Poetry@Tech \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/poetry.gatech.edu\/creative-writing-awards\/\u0022\u003Ewebsite\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJoe Phillips, a 1975 Mechanical Engineering graduate, gave a gift to establish the award in honor of his late wife.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Joe Phillips, a 1975 Mechanical Engineering graduate, gave a gift to establish the award in honor of his late wife."}],"uid":"34600","created_gmt":"2026-11-10 14:43:40","changed_gmt":"2026-11-10 14:51:14","author":"mpearson34","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-11-10T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-11-10T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"681710":{"id":"681710","type":"image","title":"phillips-gift.jpg","body":"\u003Cp\u003ECarolyn Ann Dimsdale Phillips, left, and Joe Phillips. Poetry@Tech\u0027s new Carolyn Ann Dimsdale Phillips Creative Writing Awards were established by Joe Phillips to honor his late wife\u0027s love of writing.\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1794321835","gmt_created":"2026-11-10 14:43:55","changed":"1794321835","gmt_changed":"2026-11-10 14:43:55","alt":"\u0022\u0022","file":{"fid":"266150","name":"phillips-gift.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/11\/10\/phillips-gift.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/11\/10\/phillips-gift.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":216770,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/11\/10\/phillips-gift.jpg?itok=4LmRnyPC"}}},"media_ids":["681710"],"groups":[{"id":"1281","name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts"},{"id":"1283","name":"School of Literature, Media, and Communication"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EMichael Pearson\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EIvan Allen College of Liberal Arts\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}