The Department of Literatures in English celebrates the winners of the 2025 Philip Freund Prize for Creative Writing in recognition of excellence in publication: Liza Flum (MFA '16) poet, Jon Hickey (MFA '07) Novelist, Meredith Talusan (MFA '15) Author, journalist and editor, and Esther Kondo Heller (MFA '23) Poet, writer, and artist.
The alumni prize is supported by the Philip Freund '29 endowment and comes with a $5000 award and an invitation to participate in the Freund Prize Reading in the fall semester.
The 2025 Freund Prize Reading will take place on Thursday, October 2 at 5:00 p.m. in Rhodes-Rawling Auditorium, Klarman Hall KG70. Recipients will read from their award-winning work. Books by the authors will be available for purchase thanks to Ithaca's local cooperative Non-profit bookstore Buffalo Street Books, and a book signing will follow the reading.
More about the 2025 Freund Prize recipients:
Liza Flum, Poet, MFA '16
Liza Flum’s poetry has appeared in AGNI, Narrative, Meridian, Washington Square Review, Lambda Literary, and Zócalo Public Square. She is a recipient of a Barbara Deming artist grant, and her writing has been supported by fellowships from the Saltonstall Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, Aspen Summer Words, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. She holds an MFA in poetry from Cornell and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Utah. Hover (Omnidawn, 2025) is her first book. Photo Credit: Quinlan Corbett
Jon Hickey, Novelist, MFA '07
Jon Hickey lives in San Francisco with his wife and two sons. Originally from Minnesota, he is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cornell University. He was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and has received support from the Breadloaf Writers Conference, the Sewanee Writers Conference, and Tin House. His first novel, BIG CHIEF, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2025. He is an enrolled citizen of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Chippewa Indians. Photo Credit: Sarah Peterson
Meredith Talusan, Author, Journalist, and Editor, MFA '15
Meredith Talusan's (she/they) debut memoir, Fairest, was a 2020 Lambda Literary Award finalist and named a best book of the year by multiple venues. She has contributed to eleven other books and written articles for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and WIRED among many outlets, and has published fiction in Guernica, Kenyon Review, Boston Review, Epoch,The Rumpus, Grand, Catapult, and BLR. They have received awards from Creative Capital, GLAAD, and The Society of Professional Journalists as well as fellowships from MacDowell, BANFF Centre, and Yale University. She is also the founding executive editor of them., Condé Nast’s LGBTQ+ digital platform. They teach in the MFA Writing Program at Sarah Lawrence College. Photo Credit: Gregory Kramer
Esther Kondo Heller, Poet, Writer, and Artist, MFA '23
Esther Kondo Heller is a poet, literary critic, scholar, and filmmaker. She is the author of AR:RANGE:MENTS (Fonograf Editions, 2025). Heller's writing has appeared amongst other places in the Georgia Review, BOMB, Modern Poetry in Translation, and The Guardian. Currently, they are a graduate student in Comparative Literature at Harvard working on Black transnational poetry and translation studies. Photo Credit: Whitney Browne
This years reading will have a guest reader: last year's Freund Winner, Aisha Abdel Gawad, Writer, MFA ‘13 will be joining as well!
