12th Street, the literary journal of the Riggio Honors Program: Writing and Democracy, has won the Program Directors Prize for Undergraduate Lit Magazine in Design award for 2009 from the Association of Writers and Writing Program (AWP).

Instituted by the directors of AWP member creative writing programs, the prizes are awarded annually in the categories of content and design. Each winning magazine—one in content, one in design—receives a $500 cash award.

The first issue of 12th Street was published in April of last year. The journal features fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from undergraduates at The New School and is edited by students in the Riggio Honors Program under the guidance of Rene Steinke, Riggio faculty member, National Book Award finalist, and former editor-in-chief of the Literary Review. The Riggio Writing and Democracy Initiative at The New School is funded by Leonard and Louise Riggio.

Please join 12th Street at the Union Square Barnes & Noble, 33 E. 17th Street, on Monday, May 18 at 7:00 p.m., for the launch of the second issue. Readers include student contributors, the poet Dorothea Lasky and New School Writing Program faculty members Mark Bibbins,Douglas A. Martin, and Sigrid Nunez.

The designer of the journal, Brian McMullen, is an artist and writer living in San Francisco. His work has appeared in The Believer, Cabinet, McSweeney's, and dot dot dot. A boxed set of 100 postcards he curated for McSweeney's, titled Greetings from the Ocean's Sweaty Face, will be out in June.

12th Street accepts submissions from all undergraduate students at The New School. The journal is nationally distributed by Barnes & Noble. For more information about the Riggio program and the journal, please visit The New School Riggio website  and the 12th Street Journal website .