Sister Mariella Gable Prize

Sister Mariella Gable's spirit inspires the Literary Arts Institute and all of its programs. Dante scholar, poet, editor, writer, champion of new fiction, the late Sister Mariella Gable was an outstanding English professor who taught at the College of Saint Benedict from 1928-1973.  She guided many students into lives informed by literature and played an important role in the early careers of such writers as Flannery O'Connor, Betty Wahl, and J.F. Powers.

The Sister Mariella Gable Award is given each year by the College of Saint Benedict for an important work of literature published by Graywolf Press.  Graywolf Press, recently described by Ploughshares magazine as, "arguably the best small press in the country," and the Literary Arts Institute have formed an innovative collaboration to explore new ways of promoting the literary arts on campus, to audiences in the surrounding area, and in the Twin Cities. The 2007 winner of the Sister Mariella Gable Prize is Duende by Tracy K. Smith. Past winners include the trilogy, Variation on the Theme of an African Dictatorship by Nurruddin Farah, The Collected Poems of Jane Kenyon by Jane Kenyon, The Weatherman by Clint McCown, One Vacant Chair by Joe Coomer, The House on Eccles Road by Judith Kitchen, and Loverboy by Victoria Redel, which was recently made into a movie by Kevin Bacon last year.