Student sitting between two library bookshelves on laptop wearing headphones
English Department

2024 Writing Awards

Writing Awards Ceremony

Followed by an open reading coordinated by Aphros literary magazine.

$25,000 in awards including the NYC English Department Willis, Owens, Gill, Cannon, and Rose Writing Awards, and the Academy of American Poets.

Refreshments will be served and all are welcome!

Thursday, April 25
3:30 p.m.–5:00 p.m.
Bianco Room, 15 Beekman

2024 Willis, Owens, Gill, Cannon, and Rose Writing Awards, and the Academy of American Poets Prize

The Sarah Willis, Billie and Curtis Owens, Richard Gill, Gerard Cannon, and James Rose memorial funds, named in honor of distinguished English Department faculty, and the David A. Bickimer-Promise of Learnings/Academy of American Poets Prize.

LITERARY CRITICISM

Research
  • Cailyn Mickelsen Billie and Curtis Owens Award, 1st Place: “The 'Unman' in Twelfth Night” and “Bloody Henrys: Cyclical Christian Narrative in Henry IV, Part 1”
  • Molly Dunne, Gerard Cannon Award, 2nd Place: “Ancient Concepts in New Contexts: Mêtis as the Woman's Tool of Self-Empowerment in Medieval European Literature”
  • Griffin Tietje, Gerard Cannon Award, Honorable Mention: “Troilus and Criseyde: From Pen to Print”
  • Cori Magsby, Gerard Cannon Award, Honorable Mention: “Art History through Black Eyes: The Insertion of Black Culture into the United States Art World”
  • Chloe Stout, Gerard Cannon Award, Honorable Mention: “Septimus, Clarissa, and Mermaids: Virginia Woolf’s Exploration of Gender Conformity in Mrs. Dalloway”
Textual Analysis and Engagement
  • Jack Niemczyk, Billie and Curtis Owens Award, 1st Place: “‘I Am a Foolish Fond Man’: King Lear and His Fool”; “Water: A Matter of Life and Death”; and “The Richness of Camp”
  • Lauren Kube, Gerard Cannon Award, 2nd Place: “Haunted by the Past: How Memory Ignites Itself in Mrs. Dalloway and Good Morning, Midnight”
  • Tamara Frieson, Gerard Cannon Award, Honorable Mention: “‘What Did I Do To Be So Black and Blue?’: Racial Existentialism in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man” and “Corruption, Manipulation, and Deceit: The Failures of Capitalism and the Restorative Nature of Socialism in the Swindling Twentieth-Century American Society of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair”
  • Alissa Petrizzo, Gerard Cannon Award Honorable Mention: “Food as Memory Practice in Pitchaya Sudbanthad’s Bangkok Wakes to Rain and Aminatta Forna’s Happiness”
  • Margaret Reilly, Gerard Cannon Award, Honorable Mention: “Black Interiority and Its Creative Effects”

NONFICTION

  • Felicity Flores-Drew, Gerard Cannon Award, 1st Place: “A Tale of Two Americas”
  • Josh Ilano, Billie and Curtis Owens Award, 2nd Place: “Screwhead”
  • Nathaniel Augustin, James Rose Award, 3rd Place: “The Most Disrespected Culture in America”
  • Lauren Vogel, Gerard Cannon Award, 3rd Place: “Green Apples”
  • Maria Mendoza, Richard Gill Award, Honorable Mention: “All Is Fair in Love and War”
  • Riley Natalova, Gerard Cannon Award, Honorable Mention: “Yellow Covers”

JOURNALISM

  • Gianna Sparacino, Gerard Cannon Award, 1st Place: “The Plight of Pay Inequalities Amongst Pace Adjuncts”
  • Tamara Frieson, Gerard Cannon Award, 2nd Place: “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls: Why Is No One Talking About This?”
  • Riley Erin Fell, Billie and Curtis Owens Award, 3rd Place: “Union Membership Is on the Rise for the First Time in Fifty Years: Here Is How Starbucks Turned Me Into a Labor Rights Activist at Seventeen Years Old”
  • Kayla Baldwin, Sarah Willis Award, Honorable Mention: “It’s Black History Month, and This Is How Pace Students Are Feeling”
  • Cailyn Mickelsen, Richard Gill Award, Honorable Mention: “The Earth Room’s Wild Frontier”

LINGUISTIC AND RHETORICAL ANALYSIS

  • Taiya Curcio, Sarah Willis Award, 1st Place: “Language Use in Relation to an Individual’s Perceived Gender Presentation”
  • Abigail Mutton, Gerard Cannon Award, 2nd Place: “A Genre Analysis: Diary Studies of Second Language Acquisition”
  • Eleanor Nealon, Gerard Cannon Award, 3rd Place: “Get Rhetorical with Me”
  • Grace Jones, James Rose Award, Honorable Mention: “The Discrimination Against Natural Hair”
  • Griffin Tietje, Gerard Cannon Award, Honorable Mention: “Navigating Behavioral Economics: An Analysis of Writing Styles and Disciplinary Norms”

COMICS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS

Scripts
  • Zoë Adams, Richard Gill Award, 1st Place: “En Passant”
  • Samuel Stein, Gerard Cannon Award, 2nd Place: “It’s Been a Really Long Night”
  • Janet Gerges, Billie and Curtis Owens Award, 3rd Place: “Goodnight, Acorn”
  • Veronika Orlovska, Gerard Cannon Award, Honorable Mention: “Zero”
Essays
  • Jayna Moskovitz, Gerard Cannon Award, 1st Place: “Close Reading of Smile”
  • Alec Conwell, Gerard Cannon Award, 2nd Place: “Facing Internalized Racism in American Born Chinese”

PLAYWRITING

  • Maggie Dunn, Gerard Cannon Award, 1st Place: “Girls Online”
  • Reid Ivanoff, Gerard Cannon Award, 2nd Place: “Houses”
  • Charlie Leo, Billie and Curtis Owens Award, 3rd Place: “La Tragedia de Danny Walker”
  • Alice Tinari, Sarah Willis Award, Honorable Mention: “Nosh Pit”
  • Ella Bernarduci, Gerard Cannon Award, Honorable Mention: “What To Do When Walking on Eggshells”

WRITING ON FILM

  • Veronika Orlovska, Gerard Cannon Award, 1st Place: “Quai du Plaisir”
  • Dominic Miguel Smith, Richard Gill Award, 2nd Place: “The Shining and the Façade of the American Dream”
  • Mia Lastrella, Sarah Willis Award, 3rd Place: “The ‘Cinematic Pleasure’ of Bones and All”
  • Kate Waldman, Billie and Curtis Owens Award, 3rd Place: “The Perception of Carol”

WRITING FOR FILM AND TELEVISION

Feature-Length Screenplays
  • Sophia Traub, Gerard Cannon Award, 1st Place: “Breadcrumbs”
  • Lexie Tierney, Sarah Willis Award, 2nd Place: “All Virgins Must Die: Involuntarily Celibate”
  • Joshua Rabin, Gerard Cannon Award, 3rd Place: “Lost in the Game”
Television Scripts
  • Kat Hine, Gerard Cannon Award, 1st Place: “The Other Two: ‘Pat Does a Drag Storytime’”
  • Charlie Razhanskiy, Billie and Curtis Owens Award, 2nd Place: “An Angel and a Demon Walk Into an Apartment”

FICTION

  • Sarah Kincaid, Sarah Willis Award, 1st Place: “A Mother’s Love,” “Holier”
  • Sylvie Morris, Sarah Willis Award, 1st Place: “UnHinged Reviews”
  • Alicia Bennett, Gerard Cannon Award, 2nd Place: “All in a Night’s Work” and “War Paint”
  • Ava Scott, Gerard Cannon Award, 2nd Place: “Our Divine War”
  • Grace Jones, Billie and Curtis Owens Award, 3rd Place: “To Be Young Without the Innocence of a Child”
  • Zoë Adams, Gerard Cannon Award, 3rd Place: “Good Girls in Here Daddy’s Truck”
  • Taiya Curcio, Billie and Curtis Owens Award, Honorable Mention: “An Obscure Internet Game”
  • Grace Kerner, Gerard Cannon Award, Honorable Mention: “God’s Plan”

POETRY

  • Emily Shafer, David A. Bickimer—Promise of Learnings /Academy of American Poets Prize: “Keys,” “And congratulations!,” “swing time,” “here,” and “splice”
  • Cailyn Mickelsen, Sarah Willis Award, 1st Place: “polycardial,” “California Strawberries,” “Notebook, Covered,” “WORDS TO DESCRIBE THE POET THAT YOU WOULDN’T SAY IN PLEASANT COMPANY,” and “familiaritatis obcenae; me and thee”
  • Reid Ivanoff, Gerard Cannon Award, 1st Place: “Eco-Brutalism,” “Bookshelf,” “I Need to Shower Tonight,” and “Us”
  • Angelina Boris, Gerard Cannon Award, 2nd Place: “Hey, Never Change.,” “Remembering,” “A Proposed Escape from the Daily Reaper,” “For Fear,” and “Ode to Fire Safety”
  • Abigail Orkin, Gerard Cannon Award, 2nd Place: “’pieces of the globe are now a piece of me,” “a painting of a cat i saw in Amsterdam,” “rotten,” “Pieces of my childhood bedroom,” and “Ode to the Hour”
  • Josh Ilano, Sarah Willis Award, 3rd Place: “The Weed Is Not the Flower”
  • Felicity Flores-Drew, Gerard Cannon Award, 3rd Place: “Loving vs Smithtown,” “Honey in the Hive,” “My Friend Dionysus,” “How To Care for Your Ailing Poet,” and “Coney Island Carnies”
  • Jack Niemczyk, James Rose Award, Honorable Mention: “It Could Be Worse,” “A True Account of Talking to a Liza Minnelli Record,” “Sonnet 2,” and “New York Lessons: Collection of Shorts”
  • Lauren Vogel, James Rose Award, Honorable Mention: “Wasp Season,” “Missed Flight,” “Turkeys,” and “Seashells”

2024 Kelly Herbert Writing Award

Presented by LaDarius DuPree, Associate Director of the LGBTQA Center
Eli Butler, “Fishful Thinking”

2024 Excellence in Dramaturgy Award

Presented by English Department Co-Chairs Stephanie Hsu and Sid Ray
Bella Levin

2024 English Faculty Excellence in Teaching Awards

Presented by English Department Co-Chairs Stephanie Hsu and Sid Ray

  • The Gerard Cannon Excellence in Teaching Award: Sharifa Hampton
  • The Tom Henthorne Excellence in Teaching Award: Erica Johnson