Four Hill School students were named the winners of the Alex H. Revell, III '43 Writing Contest during the Dial Dedication Ceremony on Wednesday, May 20, 2026. The contest, now in its 18th year, honors the late Alex Revell, a longtime English instructor at The Hill.

The contest includes four categories: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and podcasts. The Wolff Prize in Fiction is named in honor of Tobias Wolff '64, acclaimed author of the book, Old School, among other short stories and books; The Gardner Prize for Nonfiction is named in memory of Bon Gardner '64, former Hill instructor of English; The Marshall Prize in Poetry is named in honor of Ann Marshall, instructor of English emerita; and The Benedict Prize for Podcasting is named in honor of author Pinckney Benedict '82.

Tobias Wolff ’64 Prize for Fiction

Winner: Saoirse Harlan '27, “A Tribute to Roadkill”

Fiction Judge Pinckney Benedict '82 said: “The first sentence does exactly what a first sentence ought to—'She was born in April, in the kind of rain that makes the whole world smell like beginning'—which is to set up an ending you already half-dread, and everything between that birth and the truck at mile marker 34 is written with a precision and confidence that’s rare.”

Runners-up: Richard Liu '27, “Distance” and Deric Choi '26, “I Am Not a Counter-Revolutionary, Comrade”

Bonnell Gardner ’64 Prize for Creative Non-fiction

Winner: Sophia Li '29, "sisterly"

Non-fiction judge Laura Benedict said: “Sophia Li’s perfectly titled 'sisterly' reads like a poem, a eulogy, a love letter, a living memory of childhood, of loss. Each of the essay’s seven parts is a snapshot of Li’s relationship with Wu Yang, her cousin, whose father is German. Opening the piece with the lighthearted announcement of her uncle’s ethnicity, unexpected in a Chinese setting, would seem to presage an overall frivolous tone for the piece. Yet, as it progresses, the tone changes incrementally, growing more intense.”

Runners-up: Richard Liu '27, “Turkey for Christmas” and Yiyi Wan '28, “A Place That Taught Me How to Stand”

Winner of the Ann Marshall Prize for Poetry

Winner: Saoirse Harlan '27, “Testimony to Back Pain”

Judge Laura Kasischke writes, “This is a truly remarkable poem. In it, the fact of physical pain is infused with an ominous, terrible, human beauty. The images throughout are memorable, resonant, transcendent. The poet demonstrates such control over pace and tone that it’s not possible to stop reading after the first line or to stop until the poem ends, and that reading experience brilliantly mirrors the experience being evoked in the poem.”

Runners-up: Otto Maentz '27, “Suplex” and Michelle Lawrence '26, “What They Don’t Tell You About Having Divorced Parents”

Pinckney Benedict ’82 Prize for Podcasting

Winners: Richard Liu '26 and Adam Yao '26, “Friday Night Conversations”

Judge Pinkney Benedict writes: “What makes this podcast work is the same thing that makes any good late-night conversation work—you can feel that nobody planned it. When Richard walks up to a kid at an airport and says “hi, my name is Richard, can you be my friend?” and the whole thing somehow lands at Locke’s blank slate and a full RoboCop breakdown, it doesn’t feel like a detour; it feels like how thinking actually moves.”

Runners-up:  April Mittnacht '27, Alessandro Volterra '27, and Alex Khamichonak '27, “Triple A / J-Ball" and Cole Trn '27 and Felix Menard '27, “Campaign Confidential”