Undergraduate Awards in English

Awards History

2025 Winners

The Henry Clay Stier Award in English: Erika Wu – 4.0

“Erika Wu’s 4.0 GPA as a double-major in English and Political Science and a Paul Tulane Scholar tells only part of her story. She also has a record of service to the community and Tulane that includes formal peer mentorship across campus, teaching English as a second language at the Academy of Chinese Studies, and contributing to the Asian American Student Union. While studying abroad at Oxford and in Northern Ireland, she represented not only our highest standards of academic excellence but also our deepest commitments to community-building. Erika Wu is richly deserving of this award.” (Testimonial from Adam McKeown)

The Donald Pizer Award in American Literature: Shannon Denney

“Shannon assembled a collection of over twenty short essay fragments covering three centuries of captivity narratives, from Cabeza de Vaca in the sixteenth to Sarah Wakefield in the nineteenth. Throughout, she traced the complex interconnections between emerging concepts of race and ethnicity, changing modes of masculinity and femininity, and the unfolding of colonial projects. The final project was a thoughtfully written reflection of great nuance and clarity.” (Nomination from Ed White)

The Pierce Butler Prize for Excellence in English: Kaylee Horne

“Kaylee has been a model of excellence in her English classes, and she has a stellar GPA to prove it. Moreover, she has been the President of Tulane's Mock-Trial Team for the past 3 years, and always makes a point of recruiting other English majors as passionate advocates, explaining the important connections between law or legal theory and the development of skills that are emphasized in English classes, such as public speaking, debate, and analytical writing.” (Nomination from Melissa Bailes)

The Virginia Gleaves Lazarus Memorial Award: Maya Shields

“I love Maya's thesis in her paper, ‘Trapped in Place: Theories of Regional Construction and Self-Perception.’ She shows that, although scholarship on regionalist literature has grown much more sophisticated thanks to theories of globalization, it may be that 19thC perspectives come closer to the ways people conceptualize and inhabit the ‘local.’ Her analysis of Dallas Hudgens's ‘Terceira’ argues that the protagonist's internalized conception of ‘Atlanta’ — as static, enclosed, and enclosing — traps him as much as anything else. Brava, Maya!” (Nomination from Kate Adams)

Lydia Frotscher Award: Amber Sanchez

“In her hauntingly lyrical essay, ‘Questionnaire for Old Burying Point,’ Amber interrogates a cemetery, posing a series of unanswerable, evocative questions to the land itself. The questions conjure ghosts of the past—Puritan children buried too soon, a mother lost in grief, a man who wielded power to destroy, and another who wrestled with a name that carried unbearable weight. Each question blurs the boundary between the living and the dead, between history and the present. ‘Questionnaire for Old Burying Point’ is poignant, powerful and movingly told.” (Nomination from Bernice L. McFadden)

Class of 1903 Shakespeare Prize: Sophie Borislow

“Sophie Borislow’s essay, ‘Feminist Killjoys in The Tragedy of Mariam,’ deserves this prize. The Tragedy of Mariam (1613) was not by William Shakespeare but rather his contemporary, Elizabeth Cary, the first English woman to print a play under her own name. Still, the paper speaks to Shakespeare and Shakespeareans in unique ways. Working with Sara Ahmed’s Living a Feminist Life (2017), Sophie Borislow offers an excellent analysis of Elizabeth Cary’s play and the way Cary outlines the potentialities and limitations for feminist theory and practice of her time.” (Nomination from Scott Oldenburg)

Senior Scholar: Isabel Ross

“During this academic year, it has been my pleasure to serve as director of Isabel’s Honor’s Thesis. The thesis is a stunningly insightful essay on the existential ethics of humor in Elif Batuman’s The Idiot, Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy, and in the HBO series Girls. It’s been an honor discussing the complex issues Isabel is working with, and reading her fine thinking in print.” (Nomination from Karen Zumhagen-Yekple)

Department of English Prize for Citizenship: Maya Shields

“Maya Shields has worked in the Writing Center this past year, where she has not only tutored Tulane students, but has also visited numerous classrooms to promote the Writing Center. Beyond her work in the WC, Maya is a Staff Writer for The Hullabaloo and leads the Community Action Council of Tulane University Students.” (Nomination from Matthew Sumpter)

A Studio in the Woods Residency: Lydia Berger

“Lydia has developed into a fine comic writer who uses her background as an EMT to add depth and ambiguity to her work.” (Nomination from Zachary Lazar)

The Award for Service to the Literary Community: Remi Bass

“Remi Bass deserves this prize for her excellent editorial work at the Tulane Review.” (Nomination from Zachary Lazar)

The Dale Edmonds Prize: Jessica Jason, “Half a Step Behind.”

“A well-observed story about the ambiguous and compelling relationship between a female martial arts student and a male mentor. The dialogue, characterization, and scene-writing are among its many strengths.” (Nomination from Zachary Lazar)

The Quarante Prize: Millie Helmka, “To Do: Observe.”

“With its cynical but fascinating narrator, this story sheds much light on youth culture in the U.S., and New Orleans in particular, by bringing together three distinct and disparate characters during the COVID lockdown.” (Nomination from Zachary Lazar)

The Senior Achievement Prize for Excellence in Creative Writing: Remi Bass

“For the past four years, Remi has been an inventive and hard-working student. I first met her in my Intro to Creative Writing class and then had the pleasure to teach her in my Advanced Poetry Workshop and am currently her thesis advisor. Remi has found her poetic voice and often meditates on the responsibility we as humans have to the environment and how we cannot live well without being well to it. She often experiments with form, sound, and attempts to capture the importance of community and memory in her work.” (Nomination from Karisma Price)

2024 Winners

The Henry Clay Stier Award in English: Mikey Panner

“Mikey is emotionally intelligent, verbally gifted, and an astute critic of other students’ work. I still vividly remember some of her stories from several semester ago. They possess a warmth that can’t be faked, as well as sharp humor and delicate insight into the minds and souls of her characters. Empathy, curiosity, mental toughness, and the ability to communicate complexity in compelling, vivid language—Mikey has all of these in abundance.” (Testimonial from Zach Lazar)

The Donald Pizer Award in American Literature: Helena Stewart

“Helena Stewart has one of the finest minds I’ve ever encountered and absolutely the finest mind I’ve encountered in the classroom. There is something very rare about the simultaneous velocity, creativity, patience, and precision in Helena’s thinking. It is a gift to witness the swift complexity and imaginativeness as their mind bursts into action in conversation and then to watch even more richness emerge in their surprising, persuasive, sophisticated writing on disability, race, and sexuality in contemporary US poetry and memoir.” (Nomination from Michelle Kohler)

The Pierce Butler Prize for Excellence in English: Nina Kisanga

Adams: “From the outset, Nina’s writing revealed the sophistication of her ideas and the intensity of her curiosity. I was very surprised to learn she was a first-year student, given her intellectual confidence and ability.”

Imma, “Nina’s bold ideas stood out during discussion; her papers engaged a broad set of political geographies with rigor, precision, and sensitivity, reflecting a graduate-level sensibility.” 
Bailes: “Nina is simply fantastic! She scored the highest in my British literature survey of any student who has ever taken the course, and her insights in class discussion were consistently brilliant.” 
(Nominations from Kate Adams, Z’étoile Imma & Melissa Bailes)

The Virginia Gleaves Lazarus Memorial Award: Claire Hanley

“(ENLS 5010: Graveyard Poets F23) Claire’s paper, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Which Man Tells Your Story,” brilliantly interrogates portrayals of women’s posthumous existence in eighteenth-century graveyard poems by Robert Southey and William Shenstone. She explores how the female body in this era was often represented as merely a machine or “a body to be prepared for participation in marriage, childbearing, and housework.” Claire insightfully argues that these male poets further dehumanize women by depicting their violent deaths, and thus the loss of even their contested bodies. (Nomination from Melissa Bailes)

Lydia Frotscher Award: Max Frisch

(ENLS 5010: Joyce’s Ulysses F23) “Max’s writing for my Ulysses capstone, “Bloom’s Odyssean Challenge,” demonstrates his usual subtle, open-minded, and engaged thinking. In this course and others, he has been hard-working, receptive (and indeed, responsive!) to critique, always ready to rise creatively to intellectual challenges. His rare critical acuity, intellectual curiosity, and ability to make striking interpretive connections all contribute to the success of this paper.” (Nomination from Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé)

Senior Scholar: Martha Sanchez

In this thesis, “‘A Radical Revolution’: Why ‘The New Journalism’ Thrilled a Generation and How Newspapers Can Do It Again,” Martha Sanchez has done a dazzling job of tracing the history of New Journalism, from its thunderclap birth during the chaos of the 1960s counter-culture to its demise only a decade or so later, contextualizing this brief but crucial history through its deep roots in the magazine writing of earlier generations, through the careers of Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, and Hunter Thompson, to its possibilities for renewing news readership in today’s desperately divided era of blogs, disinformation, and artificial intelligence. Elegantly written, with a wealth of unforgettable detail – a memorable achievement. (Committee: TR Johnson, Zach Lazar)

Department of English Prize for Citizenship: Collin Curry, Jeanette McKellar

“Collin Curry has served as an enthusiastic Writing Center tutor for two years. During that time, he has led tutoring sessions in person, over Zoom, and asynchronously. He has promoted the Writing Center by going on numerous classroom visits, and he has even provided instructional writing presentations to humanities classes. He has served not only as a model employee, but as a campus-wide advocate for the power of writing.” (Nomination from Matt Sumpter).

“Jeanette McKellar has used writing and literary scholarship to advocate for gender equity and victim support at Tulane. In an article for the Hullabaloo, Jeanette examined the power imbalances that shape “hookup culture.” She has extended this engagement with research projects on romance narratives currently popular among college readers, and on how female and non-binary students are positioned in the New Orleans Public School system, making all of this work available to fellow students through presentations and exhibits.” (Nomination from by Isa Hinrichs)

A Studio in the Woods Residency: Remi Bass

I've taught Remi in both my Intro to Creative Writing and Advanced Poetry Writing classes and it has been wonderful to get a front row seat to her growth as a poet finding her own voice. Much of Remi's work meditates on the love and tension experienced by a daughter trying to develop more independence out on her own. "An Ode to Your Sweet Soul and to All You’ve Done For Me" is a poem that stands out to me. It is a tribute to a grandmother and the safety she has provided the poem’s speaker. Remi’s work is often full of music and her use of rhyme and other sonic qualities beautifully capture the tenderness of memory. (Nomination from Karisma Price)

The Award for Service to the Literary Community: Amelia Jacobson

Amelia consistently distinguishes herself in writing workshop through her detailed attention to work by fellow writers and the precise and incisive suggestions she offers. Outside of class, she has been a committed participant in program events, including sharing her own work at our inaugural Literary Evening. (Nomination from Thomas Beller)

The Dale Edmonds Prize: Cherry Strauss

“My Bartender”: Delirious, droll, clear eyed, “My Bartender” charts a summer in New Orleans during which a complex web of relationships unfurl -- some familial, some amorous, some drunk, for better and for worse. (Nomination from Thomas Beller)

The Quarante Prize: Anna Swerdlow

“Looking After": The familiar conceit of a young woman working as a hostess in a crappy restaurant job is given added dimension by the presence of her boyfriend’s seven-year-old daughter for whom she is a regular babysitter and who she loves even more than her collection of 146 bongs. The tone is antic and profane. (Nomination from Thomas Beller)

The Senior Achievement Prize for Excellence in Creative Writing:

Mary’s Thames’ accomplishments span fiction, nonfiction, and her engagement with the work of her peers in the workshop. Her story “Bones,” is one of several that orbit the landscape of a rundown horse farm in Mississippi and the elderly trainer who is trying to hold onto it. The tone is wide-eyed and wise. (Nomination from Thomas Beller)

2023 Winners

The Henry Clay Stier Award in English: Benjamin Daniel Hughes

Ben is a truly exceptional student who will graduate having taken, and earned As in, fourteen English courses. As one faculty member puts it, Ben’s academic and creative writing evince a wisdom and maturity far beyond his years; even as a sophomore, he seemed more like an advanced graduate student. Another professor describes Ben as “an absolute joy” to work with: “He ranks easily among the best I have taught in 20 years at Tulane.” (Testimonials from TR Johnson and Tom Albrecht)

The Donald Pizer Award in American Literature: Claire Louise Stephens

Multiple professors nominated Claire, praising her as a remarkable student. Her coursework in American literature ranges from Early US Poetics to Slave Narratives to Native American Modernisms. As a writer and discussant, Claire demonstrates a rare combination of intellectual ambition, creative analysis, and meticulous research. Claire has also been a leader within the department: Fellow students describe her as an academic role model who exemplifies what it means to care passionately about ideas and ethical inquiry. (Nominated by Ed White and Tom Albrecht)

The Pierce Butler Prize for Excellence in English: Isla Beggs Suess

Professor Melissa Bailes describes Isla as an outstanding student and intellectual leader, eager to grapple with difficult texts. But Isla’s commitment to literary studies also reaches beyond the classroom. As an intern at 826! New Orleans, she worked at The Living School and BeLoud Studios, helping young people develop and publish creative writing about their communities. She has also worked at the Amistad Research Collections and edits Pretty Good Pieces, a student-run literary magazine. (Nominated by Melissa Bailes)

The Virginia Gleaves Lazarus Memorial Award: Caitlyn A Pierce

(Jewish Am Lit, Fall 2022) Caitlyn's essay, "Science Fiction Isn't This Sexy," links Marge Piercy’s futuristic novel, He, She, & It, to the romance genre – specifically for its portrayal of relationships between women intellectuals and artificial male beings. However, punning on the Jewish concept of "tikkun olam" ("the repair of the world") Caitlyn argues it must begin with "the repair of patriarchy-based gender relations." In perceptive close readings, she explores Piercy’s reimagining of heteronormative masculinity via tabula rasa non-humans, a golem and an android, who are placed under the tutelage of brilliant women. (Nominated by Joel Dinerstein)

Lydia Frotscher Award: Elizabeth Currie

(ENLS 4190: Enlightenment Lit & Culture F22) Elizabeth Currie's excellent essay, "Oroonoko: The Conjugal Slave," provides a careful, original, and well-researched reading of Aphra Behn's 1688 novella, Oroonoko. Speculating on Behn's motives for portraying her African protagonist in recognizably feminine and European terms, Elizabeth argues that the narrative minimizes experiences of violent racial subjugation under slavery in order to foreground the oppression of white women in European marriages, and thus subtly anticipates works by later women writers such as Mary Astell's Some Reflections Upon Marriage (1700). (Nominated by Melissa Bailes)

Senior Scholar: Molly Elizabeth Graham

Molly’s thesis “‘Little Tranquility’: Beth March’s Death and Why it Still Matters” breaks genuinely new and important ground in scholarship on Louisa May Alcott’s famous novel, Little Women. Analyzing Beth’s characterization from its origin in 19thC sentimentalism through dozens of written, cinematic, and zine adaptations, Molly shows how it reinforces the ongoing fetishization, feminization, and whitening of innocence in US culture. Committee members praised her astute textual analyses, sophisticated engagement with literary criticism and cultural theory, and authoratative -- often funny -- argumentative voice. (Committee: Kate Adams, Tom Albrecht, Clare Daniel)

Department of English Prize for Citizenship: Madeleine Alice Draper

Professor Isa Hinrichs praises Madeleine’s work for the Tulane community over the past four years, including her service as a Peer Mentor and chief copy editor of the Hullabaloo. Tailoring her approach to individual needs, Madeleine has helped dozens of students become for involved and integrated, academically and socially. Her deep understanding of campus systems of knowledge and power – drawn from majors in History, Philosophy, and English – has proved invaluable when serving as a liaison between students and professors and working to provide equitable access to the (hidden) curriculum and other resources. (Nominated by Isa Hinrichs)

A Studio in the Woofs Residency: Megan (Mae) Ashley Graber

The Old Hotel” by Mae Graber is a delicately told account of a prodigal daughter’s return to her rural hometown. Her relationship with her father, as well as where she has been, are slowly revealed over the course of a meandering drive home during which he narrates the town’s gossip as they pass various landmarks. Full of dark humor and sharp observation, “The Old Hotel” is a haunting study of character and place. (Nominated by Thomas Beller)

The Award for Service to the Literary Community: Bridget Gibbons

“The Winding Road” is told by a youngest daughter, the baby who took forever to emerge after forcing her irritable mother into labor on a hot sweaty Chicago day. The baby girl is her father’s favorite and she loves to brush his jet-black hair after dinner. When she discovers a gray hair, she is plunged into worries about her dad’s mortality. Bridget Gibbons, a sophomore English major from Chicago, hopes to work as a journalist after graduation. (Nominated by Katy Reckdahl)

The Dale Edmonds Prize: Sydney Margareta Soganich

Sydney Soganich’s story “When the Lights Come On” depicts a character who realizes too late that her marriage is over. This brutally brief, tightly controlled scene is a marvel of compression that is also capacious in its understanding of the human heart. And the writing is gorgeous. Currently a first-year student, Soganich is a young writer whose career will be well worth watching. (Nominated by Brad Richard, Chosen by Dale Edmonds)

The Quarante Prize: Ashley L Johnson

A vivid postcard from an eerie, menacing, and uneasily familiar world. In less than three pages, Ashley Johnson creates an intimate portrait of two people escaping something terrible, and destined for a fate even worse. The reader is left with the image of a pet tiger (gentle, raised from birth) who, upon licking its young master's skinned knee, discovers it "likes the taste so much that it ends up eating the kid." (Nominated by Nathanial Rich)

The Senior Achievement Prize for Excellence in Creative Writing: Karlyn Simcox

Karlyn is a dedicated student and poet focused on analyzing relationships and the concept of love in her work. (Nominated by Karisma Price)

2022 Winners

The Henry Clay Stier Award in English: Jessica Powers

The Donald Pizer Award in American Literature: Kristin Osborne

The Pierce Butler Prize for Excellence in English: Mia Schneller

The Virginia Gleaves Lazarus Memorial Award: Annie Rosenstein: "The Ecology of Graveyard Poetry"

Lydia Frotscher Award: Anna Johnson: "False Consciousness Self-Destructs: Capitalism is Too Good at its Own Game"

Class of 1903 Shakespeare Prize: Lily Levine: "Constrained Feminism in John Fletcher's The Tamer Tamed"

Senior Scholar: Claire Hines: "Literature in the Necropolis: An Analysis of Disease Metaphors in New Orleans"

Department of English Prize for Citizenship: Reagan McKinney

A Studio in the Woods Residency: C.C. Molaison

The Award for Service to the Literary Community: Maiya Tate

The Dale Edmonds Prize: Michael Naish

The Quarante Prize: Mikey Panner

The Senior Achievement Prize for Excellence in Creative Writing: C.C. Molaison

Winners, May 2018

Henry Clay Stier Award in English (Highest GPA): Laynie Kuhlmann

Donald Pizer Award in American Literature: Avery Werther

Pierce ButlerPrize for Excellence in English: Maddie Parker

Virginia Gleaves Lazarus Memorial Award for Best Essay by a Woman: Maria Gomez-Roas

Class of 1903 Shakespeare Prize for the Best Shakespearean Essay by a Woman: Hannah Newsom

Studio in the Woods Residency for an Outstanding Senior in Creative Writing: Jeremy Arnold

The Dale Edmonds Prize for Best Short Story Written by an Undergraduate: Henry Johnson

The Quarante Club Prize for the Best Short Story by a Woman: Kiera Torpie

The Award for Service to the Literary Community: Claire Weil

The Senior Achievement Prize for Excellence in Creative Writing: Nathaniel Koch

Winners, May 2017

Henry Clay Stier Award: Xiayue (Patrick / John Paul) Li

Pierce Butler Prize for Excellence in English: Charles (Cody) Siler

Don Pizer Award in American Literature: Rose Robinson

Lazarus Prize for Best Essay by a Junior or Senior Woman: Hannah Newsom

1903 Shakespeare Prize for Best Shakespearean Essay by a Woman (Senior): Kathy Le

Studio in the Woods Residency for an Outstanding Senior in Creative Writing: Jamie Logan

Dale Edmonds Prize for the Best Short Story Written by an Undergraduate: Jeremy Arnold

Quarante Club Prize for the Best Short Story by a Woman: Samah Ahmed

Award for Service to the Literary Community: Kayla Jackson

Senior Achievement Prize for Excellence in Creative Writing: Maeve Holler