2017 Convention Awards

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Each year Sigma Tau Delta recognizes excellence by awarding over $10,000 for the best convention submissions at the Red & Black Convention Awards Gala.

Isabel Sparks President’s Awards

Given for the best presentations by active student and alumni members at the Sigma Tau Delta International Convention, these awards were established in 1991 by Isabel Sparks, the fifth President of Sigma Tau Delta.

Categories

Original Prose

First Place ($600)
ReJeana Goldsborough
Alvernia University (PA)
“Montgomery Men”

 

 

Second Place ($400)
Lizzie Tesch
Norbert College (WI)
“The Eye of a Hurricane”

 

 

Second Place ($400)
Mara Borer
University of Dallas (TX)
“Finish My Story”

Honorable Mention ($100)
Melanie Brega
Sam Houston State University (TX)
“The Trinket”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($100)
Natasha Igl
Norbert College (WI)
“Seeing Through Touch”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($100)
Steven Hicks
La Sierra University (CA)
“Of Families and Other Strange Things”

Creative Non-Fiction

First Place ($600)
Kayla Dyer
Marshall University (WV)
“A Field of Queens”

Second Place ($400)
Shelby Spears
Ouachita Baptist University (AR)
“Do You Make Your Own Tortillas?”

 

 

Third Place ($200)
Amanda Schwartz
Marshall University (WV)
“Photogenic Ovaries”

Honorable Mention ($100)
Jamie Warren
Stephens College (MO)
“Jocleta”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($100)
Brandon Hansen
Northern Michigan University (MI)
“Channel 200”

Original Poetry

First Place ($600)
Kate O’Donoghue
Muhlenberg College (PA)
“where I idle”

 

 

Second Place ($400)
Indigo Baloch
Chatham University (PA)
“The Half-Cured Eggshell Suite”

Second Place ($400)
Melanie Schroeder
George Fox University (OR)
“A Thousand Feet by a Thousand Feet”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($100)
Rachel Cruea
Ohio Northern University (OH)
“The Flower Doesn’t Dream of the Bee”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($100)
Jonathan Hart
Liberty University (VA)
“On Being Now Familial”

Honorable Mention ($100)
Abraham Rexrode
Centenary University (NJ)
“Creating a Man”

 

 

Critical Essays: British Literature

First Place ($600)
Adam Mooney
Lesley University (MA)
“The Madness of Human Nature”

Second Place ($400)
Hannah Tumlinson
Stephen F. Austin State University (TX)
“Exchanging Roles”

 

 

Third Place ($200)
Shelby Preston-Conrad
Missouri State University (MO)
“Competing Temporalities in Romeo & Juliet”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($100)
Kyndall Turner
University of West Florida (FL)
“Rewriting History: William Blake’s Prophetic Bard”

Honorable Mention ($100)
Nicholas Keil
Western Illinois University (IL)
“Language and Monsterism in Frankenstein”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($100)
Richard Henkle
Marymount University (VA)
“Disregard Females Acquire Currency”

Critical Essays: American Literature

First Place ($600)
Marcy Pedzwater
University of North Carolina, Asheville (NC)
“Divine Radical Inclusivity in Flannery O’Connor”

Second Place ($400)
Audra Alexander
Mercyhurst University (PA)
“Gender, Grief, and Loss in Frost’s ‘Home Burial’”

Third Place ($200)
Anna Meer
Franklin College (IN)
“Creating a Space for the Black Mother Figure”

Honorable Mention ($100)
James McAteer
The College of New Jersey (NJ)
“Grass as Agent of U.S. Growth in “Song of Myself”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($100)
Joseph Flynn
University Of Dallas (TX)
“Desire and Fulfillment in Wilbur’s Fountains”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($100)
Mackenzie Fraser
Linfield College (OR)
“A Feminist Reading of Life in the Iron Mills”

Critical Essays: Other

First Place ($600)
Rachel Conway
Linfield College (OR)
“Waiting for the Empire”

Second Place ($400)
Zahraa Asadallah
American University of Kuwait (KU)
“Stone Protagonists: Otranto Castle and Hogwarts”

 

 

Third Place ($200)
Lauren Amaro
University of Oregon (OR)
“The Great Pumpkin as a Religious Symbol”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($100)
Blake Little
Erskine College (SC)
“Treatment of Monsters in The Odyssey and Beowulf”

Honorable Mention ($100)
Samantha West
Dixie State University (UT)
“Burning Desire: Female Sexuality in Music”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($100)
Michelle Lesniak
The College of New Jersey (NJ)
“Boyhood Bonds and the Privilege of Mobility”

 

 

Common Reader: Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman

First Place ($300)
Natalie Landers
University of Alabama (AL)
“Written Out”

 

 

Second Place ($150)
Katherine Polley
Alumni Epsilon Chapter
“Carstairs and Wilde: Rejecting the Myth of Woman”

Justin Q. Owen Convention Awards

Each year, these awards recognize critical essays and creative works by active student and alumni writing on the convention theme; this year’s theme is Recreation. The monetary prizes are given in honor of Justin Q. Owen, the first National Secretary of Sigma Tau Delta.

Convention Theme

Critical Essays

First Place ($300)
Shelby Preston-Conrad
Missouri State University (MO)
“Competing Temporalities in Romeo & Juliet”

 

 

Second Place ($150)
Kelly Kramer
Liberty University (VA)
“Absurdism in El Coronel No Tiene Quien Le Escriba”

Honorable Mention ($75)
Elisabeth Garrett
Olivet Nazarene University (IL)
“Womanly Wiles: Re-Creation of the Knight”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($75)
Uriah Greer
Arkansas Tech University (AR)
“An Exploration of Panel Usage in Lackadaisy”

Creative

First Place ($300)
Minadora Macheret
Kansas State University (KS)
“On Breathing”

 

 

Second Place ($150)
Kate O’Donoghue
Muhlenberg College (PA)
“where I idle”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($75)
Anna Wallace
University of Alabama (AL)
“The Butcher’s Cookbook”

 

 

Honorable Mention ($75)
Kara Knickerbocker
Alumni Epsilon Chapter
“Leaving Season”

Other Convention Awards

Sigma Tau Delta values creative and scholarly contributions that represent diversity of abilities, races, and creeds, and we present special awards for the best among these submissions. Sigma Kappa Delta (our sister organization at two-year schools) and Alumni Epsilon (the alumni chapter of Sigma Tau Delta) also reward excellent submissions by their members.

Beyond convention submissions, the organization also gives prizes for “Outstanding Chapter Displays” (posters displayed and judged during Convention). And Sigma Tau Delta Scholarship and Award applicants submit Convention-theme-based essays that are eligible for prizes.

Alumni Epsilon Papers

Critical Essays

First Place ($300)
Katherine Polley
“Denial of Femininity to Face the Wild”

Second Place ($150)
Meagan Meylor
“Social Erasure in Tobar’s The Tattooed Soldier”

Second Place ($150)
Rebecca Parker
“Deconstructing ‘The Jungle’”

Creative

First Place ($300)
Kara Knickerbocker
“Leaving Season”

First Place ($300)
Kathryn Boyer
“Apples, Almonds, Apricots”

 

 

Outstanding Chapter Displays

First Place ($100)
Rho Psi Chapter
Fort Hays State University (KS)

Second Place ($75)
Alpha Beta Iota Chapter
Lee University (TN)

Third Place ($50)
Alpha Pi Epsilon Chapter
Dixie State University (UT)