Hinesburg journalist, photographer and editor Geoffrey Gevalt is the winner of the 2026 Herb Lockwood Prize in the Arts. Gevalt accepted the award, which comes with a $10,000 prize, on Saturday in a ceremony at the BCA Center in Burlington.
Gevalt, 74, spent the majority of his career as a journalist for, among others, the Associated Press, Boston Business Journal and the Burlington Free Press. He left the field in 2006 and founded the Young Writers Project, a nonprofit dedicated to helping teenage artists and writers find their voice and improve their writing. The program grew out of a feature in the Free Press that Gevalt started in 2003.
Its centerpiece now is a website to which kids can submit a wide range of writing and art for publication. The best is republished by local media outlets and featured in the monthly digital magazine the Voice and in an annual anthology. In 20 years, the Young Writers Project has worked with more than 100,000 kids.
Gevalt handed control of the project to Susan Reid in 2018. He’s currently the managing editor of the nonprofit weekly newspaper the Hinesburg Record.
In a speech at the ceremony, Charlotte author Stephen P. Kiernan, a longtime colleague of Gevalt’s at the Free Press, praised his former editor.
“With the Young Writers Project, he created a new art form,” Kiernan said. “The foundation he built continues to teach kids a way to express themselves, to find their voice, how empowering it is to have an interested and respectful audience.”
In a phone interview, Gevalt said he was shocked to learn he’d won the prize.
“I felt unworthy,” he said of being honored for his role at the Young Writers’ Project. “It’s not an uncommon human reaction of feeling like it wasn’t just me; it was hundreds of people and organizations that helped make it happen and, of course, the thousand of kids who made it special.”
He added: “It was the best job I’ve ever had.”
Gevalt said he plans to use some of the prize money to hire an editor for his long-gestating novel. But the bulk will go toward supporting a recently established summer fellowship for young journalists at the Record with a goal of making it a year-round appointment.
‘We have transformed it from a sleepy, 10-times-a-year printed publication to a really vibrant online weekly that we actually update every day,” Gevalt said of the Record. “And it’s gaining traction; the community is noticing it.”
Todd Lockwood established the Lockwood Prize in 2014 in memory of his brother, late Burlington artist Herb Lockwood. According to its mission statement, the award highlights “the pinnacle of arts leadership in Vermont by honoring the state’s most influential artists” who “produce significant work in the areas of visual arts, music, writing, drama, dance, film, and fine woodworking — and who encourage other artists to do the same.”
The Lockwood Prize is among Vermont’s highest arts honors. Nominations are submitted through an anonymous network of artists around the state. Nominees don’t know they’re being considered for the award until Lockwood informs them that they’ve won it. Recent winners include artist Will Kasso Condry (2025), musician Michael Chorney (2024), poet Kerrin McCadden (2022) and dancer Hannah Dennison (2020).
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