Manuscript of Emily Clark Balch's "Memories of Women," 1931

Courtesy of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia

Emily Clark Balch was a trailblazing force in American literary journalism in the early twentieth century. She was the founding editor of the Richmond-based literary magazine The Reviewer, which debuted in 1921, and wrote for a variety of publications including the Richmond News Leader and VQR. She most frequently contributed book reviews to our pages, including the manuscript featured here, “Memories of Women.” 

Upon her death in 1953, Balch made a generous bequest to the University of Virginia “for the purpose of stimulating appreciation and creation of American Literature.” The Virginia Quarterly Review created the Emily Clark Balch Prizes, calling for submissions of fiction and poetry in the Autumn 1955 issue. First-prize winners would receive $500 for a short story or $300 for poetry, and second prizes consisted of $250 and $100, respectively. All winning works were then published in the magazine. In 1978, the editors at VQR stopped calling for submissions and began awarding $500 prizes to the best work published in each genre each year. VQR continues to award the Emily Clark Balch Prizes for Fiction and Poetry today; in 2003, VQR established the Staige D. Blackford Prize for Nonfiction; VQR now also awards a Prize for Photography.