We here at the PUP always love to hear from our former summer interns, but it was especially nice Monday to hear from Delaney Parks:
“I’m super excited to share some news from here in Philly — I’ve been awarded this really cool Penn journalism prize called the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize! It’s a combination of $5,000 and the support of this huge network of alums who will work hard to help me secure a job in journalism. The intense application process looked at what felt like everything I’ve ever written, and the judges were especially impressed by my time at PUP and everything you all helped me to accomplish in Pittsburgh. I really wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart—I never would have won without PUP and the support of all of you, and I’m so grateful!!”
The 21st annual prize, named for a distinguished Penn professor who died in 1991, is given to a senior at the University of Pennsylvania who shows exceptional ability and promise in writing/reporting/editing, and who would benefit most from combined mentorship of Magid’s network of former students and their colleagues in traditional and new media, explains the accompanying news release.
Parks — who grew up in Fairfax, Virginia — is a Penn senior majoring in English, with a concentration in creative writing, who has freelanced for Teen Vogue and other publications and interned at the Resolve Philadelphia media inclusion organization.
The release notes, “She was most impacted by her summer 2023 experiences as a journalist in Pittsburgh — where she chose to give up an internship at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to instead work at the paper started by its striking employees, the Pittsburgh Union Progress. There she covered breaking news and features, including the trial of the suspect in the Tree of Life shootings, in stories that also ran in Jewish newspapers across the country. (She later wrote about her experience for 34th Street, and her creative writing thesis is a deep dive into the lives of the striking reporters in Pittsburgh.)”
Her PUP internship was funded by a Real Arts Fellowship from Penn, where she was recommended for this award — to spend however she wishes for her professional development — by Anthony DeCurtis, senior lecturer in the creative writing department.
“Parks has the drive and infectious energy, the reporting and writing skills, and the commitment to team-building and mentorship that Nora Magid so admired in Penn nonfiction writers,” reads the release. You can read the whole thing here.
All of her mentors at PUP are thrilled for Delaney and continue to look forward to what she does next.
She texts: “Out of all the experiences I’ve had in journalism, working for PUP has been the most influential in leading me here, and I couldn’t have won this award without the support of the whole ‘striker family’!”
The PUP is the publication of the striking workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
