Undergraduate Contest Winners
2022
Celeste Turner Wright Poetry Prize
1st Place: Bailey Harrison, “member that tulsa twilight”
2nd Place: Kayleigh Norgord, “Ocean City”
Honorable Mention: Chloe Gambill, “In the Kitchen”
Pamela Maus Contest in Creative Writing
Fiction
1st Place: Keerthi Lakshmanan, “Her Rani”
2nd Place: Rafael Viscarra, “Flight of 1000 Doves”
3rd Place: Hope Koonin, “Dead Stretch”
Poetry
1st Place: Anna Kristina Moseidjord, “on my grandmother’s suicidal tendencies” “lover” “brookpark road” “On Europe” “egg” and “how it looks from everywhere else”
2nd Place: Cami Rothmuller, “Magicicada (Periodical Cicada)” “Idolatry” “Groundwater” “Chrysina Woodii (Wood’s Jewel Scarab)” “Nightwalk” and “The Composer”
3rd Place: Jesse Saldivar, “July 4th Vacation” “ Where the Walls Meet” “Psyche Word” “Edifice of Nature” “Terrible Song” and “The Drop of Water in Red Light, by Shiva Ahmadi”
Honorable Mentions:
Josephine Clay, “Love Song (Hibernation)
Kiley Egan, “Forever Monsoon”
Candela Graciarena, “Mi Tesoro”
Jill Kraus, “Because we’re family”
Spencer Rico, “Things to Remember when Working”
Diana Lynn Bogart Prize for Fiction
1st Place: Faith Arnett, “Like Sleeping Dogs,” “Gold Turkey,” “Gen Z Guernica”
2nd Place: Jacob Anderson, “Miss Blanchard’s House”
3rd Place: Cyan McMillan, “Counterrelational” and “The Young Man’s Taste”
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Creative Writing Honors Project
Anna Kristina Moseidjord, “The Odd Survival”
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Honors Undergraduate Critical Thesis
Anna Hayden, “Hester Pulter and Domestic Alchemy: Women’s Imagined Political Autonomy in 17th Century England”
Peter Hays Writing Prize
Emilie Sung, “To Love, or not to Love (the chicken)”
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg English Department Essay Prize
1st Place: Eli Martin, “Bloom as ‘Collector’ in James Joyce’s Ulysses”
Honorable Mentions:
Emma Tolliver, “Bittersweet Battlegrounds: The Conflict of Consuming the Other in a Transnational World”
Claire Volkmann, “The Angelic Ideal in Paradise Lost”
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg Outstanding Graduating Senior Award
Fiona Davis & Eli Elster
Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research
Mimi McMillan, “’Like Footsteps Upon Wool’: Philology, Ecology, and Tennyson’s Early Lyrics" under the direction of Elizabeth Miller
2021
Celeste Turner Wright Poetry Prize
1st Place: Damieka Marrie Thomas, "Progress," "Keepers of the Land," and "White Girl"
2nd Place: Matthew Pimley, “Hamburger Heart”
Honorable Mention: Gabriel Ketron, “Untitled”
Pamela Maus Contest in Creative Writing
Fiction
1st Place: Lauren Hwang-Finkelman, "Pure," "May, 2020," and "Remains"
2nd Place: Matthew Pimley, "The Taste of Silt"
3rd Place: Cheyenne Renee Wiseman, "Face Value" and "The Enchantress of Meade Creek"
Honorable Mention: Jakob Johnson, "A Convergence of Remnants”
Poetry
1st Place: Anne Thiselton-Dyer, "The Natural Look," "Wonder," "The Passenger," and "Guard"
2nd Place: Kristina Anna Moseidjord, "Sundowning in the Wind Rivers," "falling in love, in WY again," "bizzed," and "grief as it has been to me"
3rd Place: Lauren Hwang-Finkelman, "Suspect/Kin" and "When My Mother Gets Mad at Me"
Diana Lynn Bogart Prize for Fiction
1st Place: Teja Dusanapudi, "A Gentle Earth" and "A Study on Pleasure"; Lauren Hwang-Finkelman, "Remains," "May, 2020," and "The Year of the Rat"; & Damieka Marrie Thomas, “Heat Visions” (tied)
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Creative Writing Honors Project
1st Place: Elizabeth Mercado’s “Reconocida” & Matthew Pimley’s “Collection of Short Stories and an Essay” (tied)
Honorable Mention: Lauren Hwang-Finkelman
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Honors Undergraduate Critical Thesis
1st Place: Mimi McMillan, “‘Like Footsteps Upon Wool:’ Philology, Ecology, & Tennyson’s Early Lyrics”
Honorable Mention: Caitlyn Liu, “Chinese American History and Layered Storytelling in Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men”
Peter Hays Writing Prize
Audrey Luo, “The Hero That Never Was: The Case of Woo Suk Hwang” & Serene Liu, “The Beautiful Elusive Bird” (tied)
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg English Department Essay Prize
1st Place: Teja Dusanapudi, “Paradise Aborted”
2nd Place: Claire Volkmann, “Drawing from Imagination”
Honorable Mention: Mimi McMillan, “Whitman’s and Dickinson’s Ecology of the Grave”
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg Outstanding Graduating Senior Award
Ruth Christopher
Honorable Mentions:
Karen Kay
John Wright
2020
Celeste Turner Wright Poetry Prize
1st Place: Meredith Herndon, “On Monday There Were Consequences”
Honorable Mention: Saba Keramati, “Feast”
Pamela Maus Contest in Creative Writing
Fiction
1st Place: Lauren Hwang-Finkelman, “On the Table,” "Science Says Love Makes Us Crazy," and “When I Said We Should Sleep with Other People”
2nd Place: Matthew Pimley, “The Gleaners”
3rd Place: Jakob Johnson, “The Repeat Bar” & Nicolas Rago, “When Old Men Tell of Generations” (tied)
Poetry
1st Place: Caitlyn Woodall, “movie date”
2nd Place: Anna Kristina Moseidjord, “hundred dollar whore”
3rd Place: Melanie Manuel, “We are made of broken tongues” and “dandelion” & Luis Varela, “The Collective Madness” (tied)
Diana Lynn Bogart Prize for Fiction
1st Place: Timothy Lalonde, "The Bobcat Fire" and "Theory of Patrick"
2nd Place: Ian Sterns, “Lavender Masks for Breathing in Haze”
3rd Place: Mikaela Dow, “Infestation” and “Dredge”
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Creative Writing Honors Project
Alyssa Henderson, “A Note From a Hoarder,” under the direction of Pam Houston & Mary Qin, “MY STORY IN ODI ET AMO,” under the direction of Katie Peterson (tied)
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Honors Undergraduate Critical Thesis
Hannah Cadigan-Carranza, “‘As If It Were Myself’: Unnatural Narratology and Utopian Affects in News from Nowhere” under the direction of Elizabeth Miller, & Isabel Realyvasquez, “Georgic Scale-Shifting: Cultivating Climate Knowledge in John Philips’s Cyder” under the direction of Tobias Menely (tied)
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg English Department Essay Prize
1st Place: Perrin Swanlund, “It’s a Cuck-Cuck-Cuck World”
2nd Place: Aimee LaGrandeur, “Witches of Britannia: Nationalism and the White Cliffs of Dover in White is for Witching”
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg Outstanding Graduating Senior Award
1st Place: Jumana Esau
Honorable Mentions:
Bonnie Fleury-Masterman
Alyssa Henderson
Aimee LaGrandeur
Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize
1st Place: Anthony DiCarlo, “Catch me coming south, darling,” “Poem #90,” “Something for your hands,” “Consider me one of the delighted,” and “Poem about bees, 2 AM, summer night with wind”
Finalists:
Joseph Nabor, "A Walk in the Sonoran Desert"
Michaela Poynor-Haas, “Harmony of a Farmer’s Market,” “So Beautiful to Forget,” “Love As: Understanding,” “Mama Takes Baby out of Alabama,” and “Animal Instinct”
2019
Celeste Turner Wright Poetry Prize
1st Place: Anthony DiCarlo, “I have never seen anything like this-," “A Hangover,” “someday or another,” “Reasons to Drink: #1,” and “For Fiver and Cassandra”
Pamela Maus Contest in Creative Writing
Fiction
1st Place: Bailey Crocoll, “Name Sign”
2nd Place: Kaija Holland, “Summer”
3rd Place: Gabriel Mulcaire, “In Public”, “Sunday Night,” and “Boiling”
Poetry
1st Place: Charlene Yang, “love in the fisheye,” “the logic of benthos,” “gate,” and “sum”
2nd Place: Eman Abraham, “Pre-teen in the I.E.,” “Fuck This Bar/Gin Intercepts the Last Sleep,” “From Below,” “Wool Women,” “Virgo Sun/Virgo Moon,” and “Econo Lodge”
3rd Place: Anna Kristina Moseidjord, “6 poems make an identity crisis”
Diana Lynn Bogart Prize for Fiction
1st Place: Cheyenne Wiseman, “The Drowning"
2nd Place: Bailey Crocoll, “Name Sign”
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Creative Writing Honors Project
Jennifer Thornton, "The Second Story Bathroom Girls” under the direction of honors advisor Greg Glazner
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Honors Undergraduate Critical Thesis
1st Place: Haley Spanier, "Between Social Dependence and Social Integration: The Post-WWII Existential Bildungsroman” under the direction of Mark Jerng
Honorable Mention: Emily Stack, "'The little O, the earth’: Ecology, Theatrical Land, and Shakespeare’s Tragedies” under the direction of Gina Bloom
Peter Hays Writing Prize
Lisa Malins, “‘Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations’: Star Trek as a Model of Neurodiversity”
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg English Department Essay Prize
1st Place: Maryna Imas, “The Occult Context of Heinlein’s Fiction: Sex, Magic and Quantum Mechanics”
Honorable Mentions:
Teja Dusaapudi, “Tongues Forked and Splintered: The Snake as a Conduit for Divine Connection”
Emily Stack, “Wild Colonial Boy: “‘Gone Girl’ and the Uses of Contemporary Irish-American Identity”
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg Outstanding Graduating Senior Award
Megan West
Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize Finalists
Anthony DiCarlo, “Bernini’s Daphne,” “Poem #29,” “A Hangover,” “upon the Field of Mars,” “November,” “Fundamental and Overtone,” “To a Gull,” and “Little Planet”
Ashley Kim, “Hardening”
Jarrett Rogers, “God’s Order,” “Modern Warfare,” “Death Valley,” “Goodbye, my love,” “Ciancetti,” “The Wrong Men for the Show,” and “All Reformation in Diesel Politics”
2018
Celeste Turner Wright Poetry Prize
1st Place: Kristin George Bagdanov
Honorable Mention: Namu Ju
Pamela Maus Contest in Creative Writing
Fiction
1st Place: Kelsey Owen
2nd Place: Isaac Flores
Poetry
1st Place: Gabriella Buckner
2nd Place: Hosanna Rubio
Diana Lynn Bogart Prize for Fiction
1st Place: Dylan Hendrickson, “Perfect Refraction”
Honorable Mentions:
Cheyenne Wiseman, “Wax Heart”
Brittany Wilson, “Sugarcane”
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Creative Writing Honors Project
Kelsey Owen
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Honors Undergraduate Critical Thesis
Megan West, “Bertha Mason and the Politics of Feeling”
Honorable Mention: Emma Hoppough, “Silent Talk – Transforming Private Pain and Public Healing in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak”
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg English Department Essay Prize
1st Place: Jacqueline Gordon, “Shamela as an Antidote to Emulation Anxiety”
2nd Place: Emily Stack, “Keeps you Reminded: Sex/Gender Instability and Puritan Criticism in ‘As You Like It’”
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg Outstanding Graduating Senior Award
Sofia Molodanof
Honorable Mentions:
Amanda Shores
Marissa Trujillo
2017
Celeste Turner Wright Poetry Prize
1st Place: Jamil Jan Kochai, “12:34”
Honorable Mention: Aimee Lim
Pamela Maus Contest in Creative Writing
Fiction
1st Place: Emily Masuda
Runner Up: Aimee Lim
2nd Runner Up: Alannah Clark
Poetry
1st Place: Robert Ohlstrom
Runner Up: Jordan Ranft
Diana Lynn Bogart Prize for Fiction
1st Place: Kelsey Owen, “The Elephant” and “Let Me Show You Where It Hurts”
2nd Place: Loretta Pesola, “Checking Out”
3rd Place: Aimee Lim, “What Ails Thee, Charlotte Wan?”
Honorable Mentions:
Daniel Langford, “Fixing the Fence”
Janet Son, “Prometheus Underground,” “Tête-à- Tête,” and “In the Waiting Room”
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Creative Writing Honors Project
Irina Haack, “Conversations with Sam” under the direction of Pam Houston
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Honors Undergraduate Critical Thesis
Lauren Rudewicz, “Glorious Creatures: Sympathy and the Aestheticization of Suffering in Shelley’s Frankenstein” under the direction of Seeta Chaganti and Anna Uhlig
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg English Department Essay Prize
1st Place: Emily Stack, “Came From a Woman, Got Our Name From a Woman: Female Bodies as Sites of Identity, History, and Narrative in Absalom, Absalom!”
2nd Place: Arianna Barzman-Grennan, “The Textuality of the Subject/Other Dichotomy in Othello”
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg Outstanding Graduating Senior Award
Emily Masuda
Ina Coolbrith Poetry Memorial Prize Finalists
Roy Magat
Arvind Reddy
2016
Celeste Turner Wright Poetry Prize
1st Place: Lauren Swift
Honorable Mention: Roy Magat
Pamela Maus Contest in Creative Writing
Fiction
1st Place: Kelsey Owen
2nd Place: Denise Castro
3rd Place: Adrienne Bergen
Honorable Mentions :
Michael Clogston
Amelia Fink
Gabriella Mercier
Anita Yu
Poetry
1st Place: Sydney Choi
2nd Place: Kevin Yotsoubanh
3rd place: Ian Dickerson
Diana Lynn Bogart Prize for Fiction
1st Place: Hannah Carroll for “The Sink”
2nd Place: Jonathan Lee for “Silver Dollars,” Kelsey Owen for “On the Backs of Teeth,” & Brian Wright for “In Hawai’i” (tied)
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Creative Writing Honors Project
Courtney (Elfie) Nelson, “Somehow Hours” & Melissa Dittrich, “Alright for Now” (tied)
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Honors Undergraduate Critical Thesis
Austin Lim, “‘Money is Money’: Economies of Urban Crime and International Exchange in The Beetle” & Grace Gordon, “Gertrude Stein: The Mathematical Narrative” (tied)
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg English Department Essay Prize
1st Place: Mason Harper, “The Monumental Task: Considering a Racialized Voice”
2nd Place: Brian Wright, “The Crying of Lot 49 and the American Car”
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg Outstanding Graduating Senior Award
Austin Lim
Ina Coolbrith Poetry Memorial Prize Finalists
Ian Dickerson
Devon Houtz
Nicholas Tolfa
2015
Celeste Turner Wright Poetry Prize
1st Place: Lissa Miller
Pamela Maus Contest in Creative Writing
Fiction
1st Place: Aaron Paul & Kimberly Sims (tied)
2nd Place: Tammy Lee & Amanda Ong (tied)
Poetry
1st Place: Akira Kumamoto
2nd Place: Nawid Ahray
3rd Place: Sydney Choi
Diana Lynn Bogart Prize for Fiction
1st Place: Anita Yu & Emily Masuda (tied)
2nd Place: Nicholas Troughton
3rd Place: Iris Bloomfield
Honorable Mentions:
Mason Harper
Julia Baker
Elliot Gilbert Memorial Prize for the Best Honors Critical Thesis
Margaret Gonzalez, “Feigning Ophelia: Performed Madness and Female Authority”
Elliot Gilbert Memorial Prize for Best Honors Creative Project
Emily Nicol, “Trust Me, I am Okay”
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg Outstanding Graduating Senior Award
Mitchell Snyder & Akira Kumamoto
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg English Department Essay Prize
1st place: Alannah Clark, "This is OUR Time: Postmodernist Struggle in 1980's Teen Films"
2nd place: Brian Wright "The Black Knight's Veiled Death in Chaucer's Book of Duchess" & Rebecca Fong, "Mortimer in Henry IV, Part I: The Lover as an Unfit Leader" (tied)
Ina Coolbrith Poetry Memorial Prize
Honorable Mention: Antony Fangary
Finalists:
Iris Bloomfield
Akira Kumamoto
2014
Celeste Turner Wright Poetry Prize
1st Place: Mary Katherine Nielsen
Pamela Maus Contest in Creative Writing
Fiction
1st Place: Christina Fries
2nd Place: Joanna Ng
Honorable Mentions: Laurel Carney & Isabel Moniz (tied)
Poetry
1st Place: Ester Yun
2nd Place: Emily Nicol
Honorable Mentions:
Joanna Ng
Isabel Moniz
Diana Lynn Bogart Prize for Fiction
1st Place: Christina Fries
2nd Place: Ian Koller
3rd Place: Jeffrey-Annguye Le
Honorable Mentions:
Angela Parnay
Emily Masuda
Seychelle Steiner
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg English Department Essay Prize
1st Place: Annika Cunningham
2nd Place: Ben Kelly
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg Outstanding Graduating Senior Award
Annika Cunningham & Laurel Carney
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Creative Writing Honors Project
Christina Fries
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Honors Undergraduate Critical Thesis
Katelan Bowden
Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize Finalists
Sergio Aguilar
Wendah Alvarez
Ester Yun
2013
Celeste Turner Wright Poetry Prize
1st Place: Ester Yun
Honorable Mentions:
Peter Neeley
Matt Stalcup
Pamela Maus Contest in Creative Writing
Fiction
1st Place: Laurel Carney
2nd Place: Marisa Wohlschlaeger & Dominic Booth (tied)
Poetry
1st Place: Toshii Casey
2nd Place: Marisa Wohlschlaeger
Honorable Mention: Emily Nicol
Diana Lynn Bogart Prize for Fiction
1st Place: Chelsea Keane
2nd Place: Neha Palacherla
3rd Place: Christina Fries
Honorable Mentions:
Akira Kumamoto
Ben House
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Creative Writing Honors Project
Samantha Mandell
Elliot Gilbert Award for the Best Honors Undergraduate Critical Thesis
Dominic Booth & Annika Cunningham (tied)
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg English Department Essay Prize
1st Place: Jenna Christophersen
2nd Place: Annika Cunningham
Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg Outstanding Graduating Senior Award
Claire Shalinsky
Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize Finalists
Sergio Aguilar
Neha Palacherla
Marisa Wohlschlaeger