The Nonfiction Writing Program is pleased to announce MFA student Adam Witte has been selected to receive the 2025 Magdalena Award. 

Named in honor of the donor’s mother, the Magdalena Award is granted each fall to celebrate excellence in essay writing. It is judged by an anonymous NWP alumnus, who called Adam’s submission, “Pogonostication,” “a searching, beautiful essay that braids beards, fathers, and The Odyssey into a radiant and often funny meditation on how boys learn what to believe about men, and how those beliefs quietly break."

After learning the ancient Greek root for beard, "pōgōn," Adam coined the word "pogonostication," which he determined means, "the process of creating knowledge through beards."