Congratulations to board member Spencer Reece

Recipient of the 2025 John Updike Prize ($20,000)
from The American Academy of Arts and Letters

Photo Credit: Donna Ann McAdams
Bennington College MFA Program, June, 2024

SPENCER REECE, canon and rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Wickford, Rhode Island, has won the prestigious John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honor society of artists based in New York City, NY, established in 1898, incorporated with an act of Congress by President William Howard Taft. They distribute $1.2 million every year.

The Updike Award is given out every other year to an American writer “whose contributions to American Literature have demonstrated consistent excellence.” The judges were Mona Simpson (chair), Henri Cole, Caryl Phillips, and Yi Yun Li.

The award was established by Martha Updike, in memory of her husband, John Updike. This biennial award recognizes a writer in mid-career whose work exacts memorable distinction that contributes significantly to the world of literature.

Reece’s work was originally selected by Louise Glück, for the Bakeless Prize for a first book of poetry in 2003. Glück went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2020. Reece has published three books of poetry: The Clerk’s Tale (2004), The Road to Emmaus (2014), and Acts (2024). His poetry publisher is Farrar, Straus and Giroux. His literary agency is the Wiley Agency.

In 2017, he edited a bilingual anthology of poems by the girls of Our Little Roses, in Honduras, Counting Time Like People Count Stars (Tia Chucha Press). This work was featured in a full-length award-winning documentary entitled Voices Beyond The Wall: 12 Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World available on Amazon Prime.

In 2022 two more works appeared: The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Poet’s Memoir (Seven Story Press), seventeen years in the making about how poetry saved his life and All The Beauty Still Left: A Poet’s Painted Book of Hours, (Turtle Point Press) a collection of his watercolors.

In Wickford, Rhode Island, he has been installed as rector for the last three years, affectionately called “Father Spencer” and “the vicar of Wickford.” There he has established the 14 Gold Street Author Series, which hosts writers to visit the church and rectory as well as the North Kingstown Free Library: over 30 writers have been hosted and over 600 people have attended. Guests have included Marie Howe, Nick Flynn, Dar Williams, A.J. Verdelle and Diane Glancy.

He previously served the church in Jackson Heights, NY, Madrid, Spain and San Pedro Sula, Honduras.