The Rev. Robert F. Griffin, C.S.C., Award - 2024: Patrick Madden '93

Patrick Madden '93

In recognition of his numerous academic achievements and exceptional literary prowess, Patrick Madden ’93 is honored with this award. 

Although graduating from Notre Dame with a degree in physics, Madden decided to pursue graduate degrees in writing, earning a master of creative writing from Brigham Young University and a doctorate in creative nonfiction at Ohio University. He has published three essay collections with the University of Nebraska Press — Quotidiana (2010), Sublime Physick (2016), and Disparates (2020) — each of which illuminates his love of both the sciences and the arts. Madden also co-edited the anthology After Montaigne (Georgia, 2015) and co-translated the Selected Poems of Eduardo Milán (Shearsman, 2012). His brilliance in writing spans mediums, as his published works can be found across journals, magazines, and books.

Madden’s writing has won high acclaim, including the acceptance of 10 pieces in the competitive The Best American Essays yearly anthology, as well as The Best American Spiritual Writing series and The Best Creative Nonfiction. His books have earned prizes from Foreword Reviews, Independent Publisher, the Association for Mormon Letters, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, the Utah Humanities Council, and PEN Center USA, and he was awarded two Fulbright fellowships for study in Uruguay and a Howard Foundation fellowship from Brown University.

Madden currently serves as vice president of the NonfictioNOW conference; coeditor of the journal Fourth Genre and the 21st Century Essays series at the Ohio State University Press; and curator of the online anthology and essay resource Quotidiana. Madden remains dedicated to inspiring others as a teacher of creative writing and literature at Brigham Young University and at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

“As an undergraduate living in Stanford Hall, I had many brief encounters with the colorful Father Griffin and his darling dog Darby O’Gill. Winning the award named in honor of this stalwart figure flushes me with positive emotions of nostalgia, humility, love of literature and love of life, and a great deal of gratitude for the education I received at Notre Dame.”