Jane Huffman’s poetry collection, Dilemma, has been named the winner of the 2026 Vanderbilt University Literary Prize. This award is given to a single author of a full-length poetry collection and underscores the university’s dedication to promoting new literary voices and supporting the arts as vital societal components.
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The award includes several significant benefits: publication of the winning manuscript in print, electronic, and audio formats by Vanderbilt University Press, a $10,000 honorarium, an invitation to read as part of the prestigious Gertrude C. and Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series, and a one-week residency on campus, where Huffman will engage with students and local writers in Nashville.
Huffman is also known for her previous work, Public Abstract, which won the 2023 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate in English and literary arts at the University of Denver, having obtained an MFA from the University of Iowa. Her poetry has been featured in prominent publications such as The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The Atlantic, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. In 2019, she received the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Warren Wilson College, as well as online.