BRYSON CITY, Western North Carolina – Swain County High School’s Dawn Gilchrist-Young has been named as one of The High School Teachers Writing Award Winners by the Norman Mailer Center. Gilchrist-Young will be recognized at the Third Annual Benefit Gala, Tuesday, November 8th, 2011 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City.
The award, the Norman Mailer Teachers Writing Award, is for $10,000, a flight to New York City for the black tie gala awards ceremony on the 8th of November, and a month at the Norman Mailer Writers’ Colony on Cape Cod next summer. Ms Gilchrist-Young will be honored along with award winners from other high schools, community colleges, and universities throughout the United States and Great Britain.
This year’s honorees will include Dr. Elie Wiesel, Lifetime Achievement Prize, Arundhati Roy, Distinguished Writing Prize, Gay Talese, Distinguished Journalism Prize, and Keith Richards, Distinguished Biography Prize. Presenters will include President William J. Clinton, Sr. Harold Evans, Jonathan Demme, and Mortimer Zuckerman.
Gilchrist-Young earned her BA at Western Carolina University, her Master’s degree at Columbia University, and a MFA in Poetry at Warren Wilson College. This is her 14th year teaching English at Swain County High School, where she currently serves as the head of the English Department.