David Phillip Mullins (29.2) was recently awarded the the Silver Pen Award, from the Friends of the University of Nevada (Reno) Library in recognition of his writing career in and about Nevada, as part of the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame’s effort to recognize writers who are in mid-career and have shown substantial achievement.

The National Book Foundation has named NER contributor Melinda Moustakis (32.1) one of its  2011 “5 Under 35,” an honor that  acknowledges notable young fiction writers under the age of 35. The writers will be honored Nov. 14 in New York at a celebration hosted by filmmaker and author John Waters.

Sydney Lea (32.2), who with Jay Parini founded New England Review in 1978, reads two of his recent poems and talks about what he plans to do as Vermont Poet Laureate. Lea’s essay on Frost appears in the recent Volume 32.2  of NER.

The Vermont Arts Council, along with Governor Shumlin have awarded Middlebury’s Julia Alvarez (21.1) the 2011 Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. This award is Vermont’s highest honor in the arts.