“Prairie Voices” awarded high honor

“Prairie Voices,” the student literary arts magazine at College of Lake County (CLC), won the Recognizing Excellence in Art and Literary Magazines (REALM) First Class award for 2023 by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). This is the highest honor and the second consecutive year “Prairie Voices” was awarded it.

375 student magazines from schools in 46 states and five countries were nominated. Magazines from middle schools, high schools and postsecondary schools could enter the contest. 108 magazines were awarded First Class.

"We are honored to receive this top award two years in a row,” said Editor and English Instructor Dr. Nicholas Schevera. “I would like to thank editors, Susan Daugherty, Lee-Ann Frega and Leigh Morrison; art editor, Bob Lossmann and graphic designer, Maddy Asma, for creating this award-winning publication."

Prairie Voices is a collection of student writing and art published annually in April. It represents the diverse voices of the CLC student community. A reading and reception for the 2024 issue will be held 6-8 p.m. Thursday, May 2. Complimentary copies of the magazine will be available.

The REALM program publicly recognizes excellent literary magazines produced by students with the support of their teachers. REALM is designed to encourage all schools to develop literary magazines that celebrate the art and craft of writing. Schools in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, US territories, Canada and American schools abroad are eligible to nominate magazines. For more information about the REALM Program, please visit: https://ncte.org/awards/program-to-recognize-in-student-literary-magazines/

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is devoted to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education. As the nation’s oldest organization of pre-K through graduate school literacy educators, NCTE has a rich history of deriving expertise and advocacy from its members’ professional research, practice, and knowledge. NCTE is the home of the Intellectual Freedom Center, the National Day on Writing®, ReadWriteThink.org, the Build Your Stack® initiative and NCTE Verse. NCTE supports nearly 20,000 teachers across the preK–college spectrum, with a mailing list of over 500,000, more than 100,000 followers on Facebook and Twitter, and regularly sees more than 100,000 visitors in web traffic monthly. For more information, please visit www.ncte.org