The Christopher Hewitt Award is a yearly literary prize given every June by A&U magazine. It honors writing that discusses or relates to HIV/AIDS. Each year, one winner is chosen in four categories: fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and drama. The first awards were given in 2013. The 2013 winners were Lisa Sandlin (fiction), Dorothy Alexander (poetry), Terry Dugan (creative nonfiction), and Evan Guilford-Blake (drama).
A&U magazine, originally named Art & Understanding, was created in 1991. It was started to remember creative people who died from HIV/AIDS and to share their work. Today, the magazine focuses on many aspects of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, including helping people stay healthy, preventing the spread of the disease, and providing care. It also highlights literature and the arts. Each issue includes interviews and features with well-known artists, activists, and writers, such as Anjelica Huston, Janet Jackson, Tony Kushner, George Takei, and Lupe Ontiveros.
The award was started in 2011 by Brent Calderwood, A&U’s literary editor, and Chael Needle, A&U’s editor. It is named after Christopher Hewitt (1946–2004), who was A&U’s first literary editor. Hewitt was born in Worcestershire, England, and moved to the United States in 1974. His poems and translated works were published in magazines like The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The Advocate, and in the anthology Queer Crips: Disabled Gay Men Tell Their Stories. At the time of his death at age 58, he was writing a memoir titled Brittle Bones, which included stories about living with osteogenesis imperfecta.
Christopher Hewitt Award Winners 2020
Nonfiction: The Handsomest Man in New York by Patrick Mulcahey
Drama: The Toe Incident by Katherine Gleason
Poetry: It Was Never Supposed to Be Ours by Ben Kline
Fiction: Soul Cowboy by Cris Eli Blak
Christopher Hewitt Award Winners 2019
Nonfiction: How Online Dating Empowers Women with HIV by Claire Gasamagera
Drama: My Darling Love by Joe Gulla
Poetry: Elegy for Ken Meeks by Travis Chi Wing Lau
Christopher Hewitt Award Winners 2018
Nonfiction: The Custody Visit (1987) by Andrea Laiacona Dooley
Drama: Nancy F@&ing Reagan* by Daniel Hurewitz
Poetry: San Francisco General by Greg Casale
Fiction: The Pond by John Whittier Treat
Christopher Hewitt Award Winners 2017
Nonfiction: We Blessed by John Boucher
Drama: The War Years by Charles Stephens
Fiction: The Love Whisperer by Raymond Luczak
Christopher Hewitt Award Winners 2016
Nonfiction: Save Tonight by Jennifer Sembler
Poetry: Days of 1993, ’94, and ’95 by Benjamin S. Grossberg
Fiction: Albert’s Prayer by Marie Esposito
Christopher Hewitt Award Winners 2015
Nonfiction: Long-Term Survivor by Victoria Noe
Poetry: At the LGBT History Museum in San Francisco… by Sean Patrick Mulroy (shared with) New New Colossus by Noah Stetzer
Fiction: Drowned River by Dale Corvino
Christopher Hewitt Award Winners 2014
Nonfiction: Voicing That Inner Scream: Visibility and AIDS in LGBT Africa by Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko
Poetry: Building Immunities by Stephen Mead
Fiction: After the Cure by Stephen S. Mills
Christopher Hewitt Award Winners 2013
Nonfiction: Like Taking Blood from a Baby by Terry Dugan
Drama: Cowboy Nocturne by Evan Guilford-Blake
Poetry: Trip to Wyuka by Dorothy Alexander
Fiction: Greyhound, 1984 by Lisa Sandlin