The University of Massachusetts Amherst
South College
Honors and Awards

HFA Students Awarded Five College Prose and Poetry Prize for UMass Amherst

Kylie Chamberlin speaking at the 2026 Five College Prose and Poetry Prize reading and reception at Old Chapel on April 14
Kylie Chamberlin speaking at the 2026 Five College Prose and Poetry Prize reading and reception at Old Chapel on April 14

Undergraduate students Kylie Chamberlin and Sebastian Fuentes-Roberts were recently awarded the Five College Prose and Poetry Prize for UMass Amherst.

Founded in 2003 as PoetryFest, the Five College Prose and Poetry Prize celebrates the quality and range of student creative writing with participants representing Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges, UMass Amherst, and the Care Center at Bard Microcollege Holyoke. Each year, judges review entries and award two students from each of the colleges.

Fuentes-Roberts, an English major in the Class of 2027, and Chamberlin, a comparative literature major in the Class of 2028, were among the 12 winners selected from nearly 100 submissions and honored at an April 14 reading and reception at Old Chapel hosted by Jennifer Jacobson, director of community engagement for the UMass Department of English.

“I’m grateful to live in a place with such a rich poetic history as well as a vibrant contemporary scene,” Fuentes-Roberts said. “I can definitely feel the creative energy here and it’s helped me flourish as a writer.”

Sebastian Fuentes-Roberts speaking at the 2026 Five College Prose and Poetry Prize reading and reception at Old Chapel on April 14
Sebastian Fuentes-Roberts speaking at the 2026 Five College Prose and Poetry Prize reading and reception at Old Chapel on April 14

“The Prose and Poetry Prize is a collaborative act with students from across campuses sharing their writing and, in doing so, shaping a shared literary community” said Daniel Lavigne, Five College Academic Programs administrative assistant and prize organizer. “It is about voices coming together to create something larger than any one of us could make alone.”

UMass MFA prose writer Vika Mujumder and MFA poet Amelia Van Donsel served as judges for the 2026 competition.

“​​It was a pleasure to judge the Five College Prose and Poetry Prize this year,” Van Donsel said. “There were so many wonderful poems, and I was shocked by how many we received from across all five colleges. Writers should be proud of themselves for taking a leap of faith and submitting their work to this prize.”

More information about the Five College Prose and Poetry Prize, including submission guidelines and the submission form, can be found on the Five Colleges, Inc. website.