The Program in Creative Writing and Translation is pleased to announce that Noah Truelove has been awarded the 2025 undergraduate Felix Christopher McKean Memorial Award.

Truelove's winning poem, "A Billowing wind, dark drawing its breath," appears in Issue 11 of The Diamond Line, the U of A's undergraduate literary magazine, this spring. "A billowing wind, dark drawing its breath - / Gazing back at the stars, unbroken in depth. / Waves lulling numbly, calming until death," Truelove writes in the opening lines. 

Truelove is a Fayetteville native who is currently pursuing a B.A. in English with an emphasis in creative writing. Truelove writes stories and poetry and hopes to be an M.F.A. candidate in the future. 

"I don't write to impress, but I do write to shake the dust off of emotions," Truelove said of the drafting process. "I write excessively, trimming the fat as I go with hopes of pinpointing what I am failing to discover."

The award was founded in 1945 to honor the memory of Felix Christopher McKean, an Arkansas native of Lockesburg who, while studying foreign languages, business and mathematics at the U of A, discovered a passion for writing poetry. After McKean was killed in the line of duty during World War II, his mother established the award with funds from his serviceman life insurance, stipulating that it be granted to students as a literary award for poetry.