The UI Nonfiction Writing Program is pleased to announce the winners and nominees of this year's Krause Essay Prize.

Made possible by the Kyle J. and Sharon Krause Family Foundation, and run by the Nonfiction Writing Program, the Krause Essay Prize is awarded annually to the work that best exemplifies the art of essaying. Nominations for the Krause Essay Prize are made each year by a committee of writers, filmmakers, radio producers, visual artists, editors, and readers. The nominated essays then become texts in a graduate writing seminar offered by The Nonfiction Writing Program each spring, in which graduate students ultimately select the winning work.

Professor Sarah Minor's graduate seminar served as the 2023 judges and curated the following list.

2023 Winner

• “We Were Hungry” by Chris Dennis, from Astra Magazine

Runner-up

• “Really Real Dragons” by Laia Jufresa, translated by Rosalind Harvey, from Words Without Borders

Honorable Mention

• “A Poem and a Painting About the Suffering that Hides in Plain Sight” by Elisa Gabbert, from The New York Times

2023 Nominees

• “Lost in the Typhoon” by Wendy Cheng from BRINK
• “We Were Hungry” by Chris Dennis, from Astra Magazine
• “A Poem and a Painting About the Suffering that Hides in Plain Sight” by Elisa Gabbert, from The New York Times
• The Unwritten Book by Samantha Hunt
• “Really Real Dragons” by Laia Jufresa, translated by Rosalind Harvey, from Words Without Borders
• “Sprawl” by Katie Kitamura from The Sewanee Review
• “A Walk on Cape Cod” by Eileen Myles from AGNI
• “To Name it Now” by Vi Khi Nao from The Baffler
• “Alice, Collapsing” by Sarah Polley from Run Towards the Danger
• Butts: A Backstory by Heather Radke
• "We Were Three” by Nancy Updike and Serial
• Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Private Notebooks: 1914-1916, translated by Marjorie Perloff