Outstanding First-Year Students
Balik, Summer
Bodnar, Ashley
Chen, Wei Te
Dash, Jasir
Huang, Po Hao
Kay, Christian
Martin, Ambrosia
Matsubara, Yuri
McClain, Lunden
Mitchell, Beckham
Renfro, Katrina
Shaver, Jadyn
Yetman, Annabell
Wendy Carse Sophomore Scholars
Bender, Amara
Haverilla, Madison
Hockensmith, Abigail
Kay, Christian
Lewis, Delaney
Manning, Georgia
Sisitki, Molly
Tozer, Joshua
T. Kenneth Wilson Junior Scholars
Bianco, Simon
Blystone, Haylee
Bradley, Connor
Cramer, Katelynn
Fette, Grace
Goodell, Leanne
Hearn, Hailie
Heller, Alexsandra
Jackson, Heather
Kline, Emily
Kukula, Amy
Lenhart, Michaela
Malandro, Natalia
McKibben, Abigail
Montag, Jill
Painter, Jenna
Pruitt, Allison
Robertson, Jeremy
Smathers, Payton
Sollon, Rhys
Sulava, Rebecca
Swope, Kailey
Walker, Rebecca
Swope, Kailey
William Betts Senior Scholars
Kennedy, Rachel
Kline, Emily
Covert, Regan
Pesce, Alayna
McKeehan, Adam
Kopp, Julie
Kukula, Amy
Reesman, Kaycee
Emerick, Shaye
Coulter, Portia
Naughton, Emma
Del Orbe, Leisha
Morse, Jessica
Ghee, Devan
Hendershot, Bekka
Pittman Julie
Minteer Ef
Mock, Jasmine
Guth-Borowski, Adriana
Minser, Dana
First-Year Student of the Year - English Education
Bodnar, Ashley
Second-Year Student of the Year - English Education
Haverilla, Madison
Third-Year Student of the Year - English Education
Swope, Kailey
Valedictorian - English Education
Pesce, Alayna
First-Year Student of the Year - BA English
Matsubara, Yuri
Second-Year Student of the Year - BA English
Amara Bender
Third-Year Student of the Year - BA English
Heather Jackson
Valedictorian - BA English
Leslie X. Canterbury
Claudette Dolan Service Award
Amy Kukula
Outstanding English Intern
Savannah Lear
Writing Awards
Creative Nonfiction
First Prize: Regan Covert, "The Symbolic Meaning of a Coat Hanger"
The writer makes an elegant turn from the everydayness of a coat hanger to discussing the history and urgency of the rights of women. Rights over their own bodies and the right to choice. It is a thoughtful, topical, and resonant piece of writing.
Second Prize: Madison Haverilla, "Humanity-Insanity"
The essay simply and appealingly shares the process of healing from the trauma of loss through the power of writing and words surrounded by nature. It is a real, inspiring, and relevant narrative.
Third Prize: Josie Christian, "Cigarette Summer"
This work of memoir is about taking decisions and actions in order to inhabit your own identity and finding peace and mental well being that follows this hard process. It is a powerfully strong and moving personal narrative.
Honorable Mention: Rebecca Walker, "Circles"
An aptly titled piece about the roller coaster of emotions, thoughts, and memories while going through the grieving phase of a break-up that you have not yet come to terms with.
Honorable Mention: Julie Pittman, "Jenna Wore a Red Shirt with Yellow Hearts, and She Wasn’t Real"
A short, intriguing prose poem that makes one think and leaves one wondering about what is real.
Honorable Mention: Kyrsta Hutchings, "Life Lessons you Learn While Hiking"
This personal vignette uses an incident of accidently getting lost during a hike with the author’s mother to make a larger point about the ability to return to the right path even if you are lost, distracted or move off course.
Short Fiction
First Prize: Julie Pittman, "He Watches Me While I Sleep"
Suspenseful and dread-inducing, “He Watches Me While I Sleep” portrays some of the most essential elements of the horror genre: the supernatural unknown and the anxiety-provoking unease brought on by the characters’ responses to a child’s troubled psychosis.
Second Prize: Regan Covert, "The American Order"
This dystopian epistolary, “The American Order,” is terrifyingly strange yet familiar given its focus on the disturbing trend of white nationalism infiltrating U.S. politics. Bonus points for creativity of genre.
Third Prize: Amy Kukula, "Ophelia in 2022"
A creative and playful adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, demonstrates exceptional understanding of the play and a talent for bringing its themes into the 21st century through contemporary dialogue.
Honorable Mention: Jazzy Mock (Arwen-Wynter Oakley) "Högwé’da:etgë’"
“Högwé’da:etgë’” conjures up a unique guilt, rooted in the collective psyche, of the violent history of settler-colonialism in the Americas.
Poetry
First Prize: Alayna Pesce, "Dandelion"
"Dandelion" challenges the perception of beauty via the dandelion, “a flower as yellow as the world is cruel." In doing so, it evokes and channels Emily Dickinson in the way that it uses standard poetic meter, rhyme, and tropes to set up readers’ expectations, but then beautifully refutes those expectations through startling images and surprising insights, including on the violence inherent in children’s verbal play. The poem is every bit as individual and original as its speaker.
Second Prize: Kira Findon, "On a Mountain, I Imagine a World"
With the grandeur and strangeness of a Chinese landscape painting, "On a Mountain, I Imagine a World" gives us a speaker looking into the heart of a forest from atop a mountain as they simultaneously peer into the heart of themselves. In doing so, the poem nods toward both the sublimity of the self and of the natural world and modernizes the Romantic tradition of Wordsworth and Walt Whitman.
Third Prize: Hailie Hearn, “Charlie Ordered Two London Fogs to Warm Us Up”
This well-paced poem effectively evokes memory through sensory details, tinging everyday objects and rituals with remembrance and regret.
Honorable Mention: Rebecca Walker, "Once More"
"Once More" is a raw and intense portrayal of the complexity and depth of erotic love. Through a powerful command of visceral imagery and rhythm, the speaker invites the reader to explore the paradox of love and desire in all its pain and revelatory power and through language takes the reader to the place beyond all words.
A special thank you: The faculty organizers and judges of the writing contests would like to extend their appreciation to all English majors who submitted entries and through their writing help keep literature alive.