Writing for TV, Screen & Stage is our Fall Residency Cross-Genre Area and Come From Away wins the Spalding Prize for 2025

Also, announcing faculty and guest books and scripts in common for Fall 2025—and our pre-lecture in W4TVSS and residency workshop leaders.

by Kathleen Driskell, Chair

The Sena Jeter Naslund-Karen Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University is pleased to announce that the hit musical Come From Away, with book, music, and lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, wins the 2025 Spalding Prize for the Promotion of Peace and Justice in Literature.

In 2019, Naslund-Mann, home of the nationally distinguished low-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing Program, established the Spalding Prize for the Promotion of Peace and Justice in Literature to honor exceptional literary works that exemplify Spalding University’s mission. Each year, the authors of the winning title receive $7500 and are named distinguished visiting writers for the fall residency. Recent past winners of the Spalding Prize include Kevin Willmott, for the screenplay of Blackkklansman (co-written with Spike Lee); Honorée Fanonne Jeffers for the novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois; and Javier Zamora for the memoir Solito. All awardees of the Spalding Prize can be found here.

We are also delighted to name Come From Away as our Residency Script in Common, and Sankoff and Hein will visit our Fall 2025 Naslund-Mann residency to receive the Spalding Prize and to talk about their work with students, alumni, faculty, and the Louisville community. The dates, times, and locations for these events will be announced soon.

This remarkable, moving, and award-winning comedy is based on true events in the Newfoundland town Gander. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks on the United States, dozens of commercial aircraft with approximately 7,000 passengers aboard were ordered to land at Gander International Airport. The airport’s impressive name belies the fact that Gander was and is a small town in Newfoundland; nonetheless, Gander residents scrambled to feed, shelter, and, most importantly, welcome thousands of passengers, regardless of their gender, ethnicity, religious or sexual preference, or nationality. The compassion and kindness of the citizens of Gander and their generosity toward stranded passengers created enduring friendships and connections among people who were recently complete strangers. Come From Away highlights the many occasions for human compassion even in the midst of a global tragedy.

After the play’s immense success, Sankoff and Hein wrote the screenplay providing international access to the staged performance of Come From Away. Before coming to the November residency, and to prepare for our first night’s discussion of the musical as well as other presentations, students, alumni, and faculty should view the filmed version of Come From Away, presented by AppleTV and accessed easily through many streaming services.

Irene Sankoff is a Canadian Tony- and Olivier-nominated, Grammy-nominated writer for theatre, film, and television. A writer and actor, Sankoff has received a Meritorious Service Cross of Canada. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Writers Guild, and ASCAP.

David Hein is an Olivier Award-winning, Tony- and Grammy-nominated writer. He and Irene Sankoff created My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding based on his mother's true story, earning Best Musical awards across America.

Learn more about Irene Sankoff and David Hein here.

Required Virtual Pre-Lecture in Writing for TV, Screen and Stage, Sunday, September 28, 2-3 p.m. Eastern

WTVSS Faculty member Larry Brenner presents the virtual pre-lecture, “Spoken Words and Projected Images: Differences Between Stage Plays and Screenplays.”

Despite many commonalities, playwriting and screenwriting have some fundamental distinctions beyond formatting. Aristotle's six elements apply to both forms, but dialogue and imagery take on different priority levels. Audiences interact with the two genres in very different ways, and these responses need to be considered. This session will cover these distinctions between screenwriting and playwriting, as well as focusing on the respective dominant modes of storytelling.

The pre-lecture provides students with tools they need to be better prepared for reading and discussing the Fall 2025 script in common, Come from Away and to participate in the residency cross-genre exploration in W4TVSS.

Fall 2025 residency students are required to attend or view this talk. Links to attend the lecture and to follow-up with a required lecture report will be provided to students shortly before the lecture is presented. For those who have a schedule conflict, a recording will be provided for review and posted in Canvas in order to meet the residency course requirement.

Faculty & Guest Books or Scripts in Common for Fall 2025

Students are required to read these texts and prepare comments before attending the Fall 2025 virtual faculty book/script in common discussions Sunday, October 19, 3-4 p.m. Eastern. The discussions take place directly after the virtual introductory workshop sessions for Fall 2025. Links to be provided by the School of Writing office before the virtual meetings.

Creative nonfiction. Erin Keane, Runaway: Notes on the Myths that Made Me (Belt Publishing, 2024)

Fiction. Whitney Collins, Big Bad: Stories (Sarabande Books, 2021)

Poetry. Keith S. Wilson, Games for Children (Milkweed Editions, 2025)

Writing for Children and Young Adults. Lesléa Newman, Joyful Song: A Naming Story (Levine Querido, 2024) and Alicia and the Hurricane: A Story of Puerto Rico (Lee & Low Books, 2022)

Screenwriting: Sam Zalutsky, Colonial Dreams (Available for download on Residency Canvas card.)

Playwriting: Michelle Tyrene Johnson, Chasing Breadcrumbs (Available for purchase and download on Residency Canvas card.)

Workshops Scheduled for Fall 2025 Residency

 Our faculty workshop leaders for this residency are Whitney Collins (Fiction), K. L. Cook (Fiction), Keith S. Wilson (Poetry), Erin Keane (Creative Nonfiction), Lesléa Newman (Writing for Children and Young Adults), Charlie Schulman (Playwriting), and Bruce Marshall Romans (Screenwriting). 

Do keep checking the Preparing for the Fall Residency page in the Residency Card in Canvas for added information about lectures and events we’ll feature this November, as well as lecture descriptions, pre-reading required or suggested, and other announcements. Your Residency Curriculum and Events Schedule will be released on Monday, November 3.

Happy preparation for Fall residency at Spalding! Our Naslund-Mann faculty and staff look forward to welcoming you back to campus soon.

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Kathleen Driskell, Chair of Spalding University’s Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing and Professor of Creative Writing, is an award-winning poet and essayist. In April 2025, she was named the Kentucky State Poet Laureate 2025-26 by Governor Andy Beshear. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, River Teeth, Appalachian Review, Rattle, Southern Review, Shenandoah, and other magazines. She is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Goat-Footed Gods (Carnegie Mellon University Press), as well as The Vine Temple (Carnegie Mellon University Press) and Next Door to the Dead, (University Press of Kentucky), winner of the Judy Gaines Young Book Award. Her collection Seed Across Snow (Red Hen Press) was named a Poetry Foundation Bestseller. She served as Chair of the Board of Directors of AWP, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs from 2019 to 2022.