About

We call attention to literary achievement and provide writers with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns.

Mission

To my mind, the most important thing about Donald Windham is that he believes in warmth. He knows that human beings are not statues but contain flesh and blood and a heart.”
In his introduction to Donald Windham’s short story collection The Warm Country, E. M. Forster writes.

This spirit of generosity, as 
well as a love of literature and a profound sympathy for his fellow writers, led Windham to establish the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes at 
Yale University.

The mission of the prizes is to call attention to literary achievement and provide writers with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns.

Lifelong partners Donald Windham and Sandy M. Campbell were avid book collectors, voracious readers, and friends with many of the most important literary figures of their time. Windham wrote memoirs, novels, plays, short stories, and a children’s book. Campbell was a stage actor who also penned unsigned book reviews for The New Yorker and contributed articles to Harper’s Magazine and other publications. The pair discussed the idea of creating an award to support writers for many years, inspired by Windham’s early struggles and the important role financial independence played in his later career as a writer. When Campbell passed away unexpectedly in 1988, Windham took on the responsibility for making this shared dream a reality.

Out of devotion to Campbell’s memory, Windham ignored the advice of his financial advisors and retained the Campbell family stocks he’d inherited. His resolve and modest lifestyle were rewarded, and he became wealthy enough to realize his goal of creating a literary prize. Windham had entrusted his papers to Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, and the relationship he developed with these two institutions convinced him that Yale was the ideal place to create a prize of the scale and prestige that he and Campbell had envisioned.

The first prizes were announced on Monday, March 4, 2013. A ceremony conferring the awards took place at Yale on September 10, 2013, followed by a week-long celebration of the writers. In addition to a citation and award, recipients of the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes receive an unrestricted grant of $175,000 to support their writing.

Archive At the Beinecke Rare Book
and Manuscript Library

The Donald Windham and Sandy M. Campbell Collections in the Yale Collection of American Literature at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, including their literary archives and the personal library they shared, are composite portraits of their creators.

The collections provide scholars opportunities to see these creative individuals through the eyes of many of their contemporaries.

If the collections offer a broad view of the lives and work of Donald Windham and Sandy M. Campbell, they also create a kind of group biography, documenting Windham and Campbell’s lively artistic circle. Windham’s own writings are present in the Windham
and Campbell Papers, as are photographs of Campbell in various stage roles; drawings of Campbell by artist friends can be found alongside collaboratively created visual works and texts. The Windham and Campbell Library adds additional dimensions to our understanding of the inspired lives of these remarkable individuals.

Consisting of some 80 boxes of manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, and artworks, the Donald Windham and Sandy M. Campbell Collections are a rich resource for scholars and students of literature, art history,
American Studies, and more. A literary archive at its core, the papers include Donald Windham’s manuscripts, drafts, notebooks, and journals, revealing his creative process
as a writer. The collection also documents Windham’s collaborative projects and both men’s aesthetic conversations with many literary friends, especially Tennessee 
Williams, E. M. Forster, Christopher Isherwood, Truman Capote, and Harper Lee; abundant correspondences and writings by these and other literary figures are an important component of the archive. In addition to many files associated with close friends, the papers reveal a broader artistic circle through letters, photographs, and artworks by artists Paul Cadmus and Joseph Cornell, photographers George Platt Lynes and Carl Van Vechten, and actors Montgomery Clift and Tallulah Bankhead.

If the collections offer a broad view of the lives and work of Donald Windham and Sandy M. Campbell, they also create a kind of group biography, documenting Windham and Campbell’s lively artistic circle. Windham’s own writings are present in the Windham
and Campbell Papers, as are photographs of Campbell in various stage roles; drawings of Campbell by artist friends can be found alongside collaboratively created visual works and texts. The Windham and Campbell Library adds additional dimensions to our understanding of the inspired lives of these remarkable individuals.

Consisting of some 80 boxes of manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, and artworks, the Donald Windham and Sandy M. Campbell Collections are a rich resource for scholars and students of literature, art history,
American Studies, and more. A literary archive at its core, the papers include Donald Windham’s manuscripts, drafts, notebooks, and journals, revealing his creative process
as a writer. The collection also documents Windham’s collaborative projects and both men’s aesthetic conversations with many literary friends, especially Tennessee 
Williams, E. M. Forster, Christopher Isherwood, Truman Capote, and Harper Lee; abundant correspondences and writings by these and other literary figures are an important component of the archive. In addition to many files associated with close friends, the papers reveal a broader artistic circle through letters, photographs, and artworks by artists Paul Cadmus and Joseph Cornell, photographers George Platt Lynes and Carl Van Vechten, and actors Montgomery Clift and Tallulah Bankhead.

The papers document Windham and Campbell’s multifaceted and fascinating lives. Date books, scrapbooks, and photo albums record travels across Europe and in the United States, as well as a wide range of social and literary activities. Finally, their own extensive correspondence documents the long and devoted partnership Donald Windham and Sandy M. Campbell shared throughout their lives.

Donald Windham’s extraordinary gift to the Beinceke Library also included nearly 1,000 volumes from the personal library he and Sandy Campbell shared. An outgrowth of Campbell’s practice of initiating correspondences with favorite authors, the library illustrates imaginative reading practices and creative friendships. Both Windham and Campbell marked their books in various ways and both were in the habit of laying materials into important volumes, adding photographs, letters, and related documents, as well as objects such as flowers and leaves. Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood provides an example. The collection includes a 1965 advance copy inscribed by the author, “From Truman to Sandy and Donny.”

The volume also has a presentation inscription to Windham and Campbell from Alvin A. Dewey, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in charge of the murder of the Clutter family, the subject of Capote’s work. The 
volume is additionally autographed by writer Harper Lee. Materials laid into the book include Dewey’s business card, photographic postcards from Carl Van Vechten, manuscript notes by Capote, letters from Dewey’s wife Marie, ticket stubs, and an announcement for the Book of the Month Club edition of the book reissued in celebration of its 60th anniversary.

A second copy of the title includes additional clippings and notes and a photocopy of a letter to Truman Capote from Dick Hickock, one of 
the book’s subjects. An example of the many enriching connections between the Windham-Campbell papers and library can be found in the collection of photographs in the archive documenting Donald Windham’s and Sandy Campbell’s trip to Holcomb, Kansas, where, with Capote, Harper Lee, and others, they
visited sites associated with the Clutter family murders.

The Donald Windham and Sandy M. Campbell Collections are further enriched by their context at the Beinecke. The Yale Collection of American Literature and General Modern Collections include the papers of several members of their artistic community.

Links to
the Papers

Windham and Campbell are represented by letters, manuscripts, photographs and related materials in Beinecke archives including:

Guides to
the Papers

Selection

  1. 1

    120
    Nominees

    Nominators

    Nominators are invited based on recognized expertise in the literary field. Nominators do not judge, and judges do not nominate.

    Nominations

    Nominations are by invitation only. There is no application process. Nominees are unaware they have been nominated unless they receive the prize.

  2. 2

    16
    Finalists

    Prize Juries

    Three-person prize juries in each category read the work of the nominees, including selected works and a dossier prepared on each writer.

    Selections

    Each jury reads throughout the summer and convenes in the fall to select four finalists to send to the selection committee.

  3. 3

    8
    Recipients

    Selection Committee

    Recipients are selected by a nine-person committee including two lifetime members, two Yale faculty, and five from outside Yale, including the chair.

    Selections and Notification

    The committee meets in February to select two recipients per category. Recipients are notified immediately, but are not announced for the 6-8 weeks needed to prepare publicity.