The Ohio State University Department of English

English Awards Celebration 2024

Event title slide decorate with buckeye leaves and nuts, announcing "The Department of English Awards Celebration, April 15, 2024"

For their vision and generosity, the Department of English gives our sincere thanks to all the many donors who support our departmental awards and scholarships.

Reba Elaine Pearl Burkhardt Roorbach Award in Creative Nonfiction

Awardee: Eddie Bautista Garcia
"$2560.88"
Judge's comments: A story of perseverance against all odds and privations to become a proper sax player. The prose is brisk and funny, but the story is poignant, and profoundly moving.

Honorable Mention: Theodore Jasper
"Flat"

Judge: Bill Roorbach funds these awards in memory of his grandmother and his mother, and in gratitude for his time on the English faculty at OSU. His new book, BEEP, about a squirrel monkey who saves the world, is forthcoming July 16, 2024, from Algonquin Books.

Jacobson Short Story Award

1st Place: Julian McLaughlin
"Tennis"
Judge's comments: This story scintillates with details: blue gum trees at sunset, the punk of a tennis ball hitting a chain-link fence, a young man’s sticky thigh after a session of clandestine lovemaking. Elliptically structured, it eschews exposition, providing instead a mosaic of shimmering, precise moments, which, together, render a tender, intimate portrait of a fraught parent-child relationship. Brief, luminous, and infused with longing, this story shines like a star at dusk.

2nd Place: Eriana Kellis
"Housekeeping"
Judge's comments: Objects in this story have a life of their own: rendered in exquisite detail, effectively hinting at the life of the human family who cohabits with them. As the story’s protagonist moves through this vibrantly populated domestic scene, his gaze moves strangely, less something he bestows on objects, and more something the objects extract from him. The result is a deliciously sensory story, one that meditates thoughtfully on the stuff of life—and on the life of stuff.

3rd Place: Mika Hodges
“but thanks for the orange, i guess”
Judge's comments: The narratorial voice here brims with personality. As the narrator addresses his deceased husband, his tone shifts continually, moving from snarky and playful, to angry and despondent, to loving and tender. Skillfully handled, these shifts evoke the complex panoply of emotions which accompany grief and sketch out a portrait of two lovers. As poignant as it is wide ranging, this story’s voice speaks powerfully to the complexities of love and loss.

Judge: Alyssa Quinn is the author of the novel Habilis and the chapbook Dante's Cartography. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College and can be found at alyssaquinn.net

Gertrude Lucille Robinson Award

1st Place: Mika Hodges
"survey of hell probably"
Judge's comments: “survey of hell probably” is a delight from its audacious title to its zinger of an ending—I love the story’s crass lyricism, especially in its descriptions of embodiment. This story exists in a body, and in reading it I could feel that body inhale, cringe, exhale, flinch. It was an immense pleasure to take this (probable) survey of hell.

2nd Place: Jade Josie
"To My Bones"
Judge's comments: “To My Bones” is weird and gross and funny and an interesting exploration of both cheesy metaphor and insecurity. I loved seeing the story’s dreamy sappiness slip inexorably into grotesque nightmare. The image of the protagonist trying vainly to put the squishy pieces of their sloughed-off boyfriend back together both horrified me and made me laugh.

3rd Place: Kaylee Farr
"Vestis"
Judge's comments: “I have been loved and I will never recover” is a hell of a line, and it’s not the only revelation that "Vestis," a poem about all kinds of rot, offers up. Is grief a kind of rot? Is nostalgia? I don’t know, but I’ll be thinking about that for a while.

Judge: Molly Olguín is a writer, educator, and monster aficionado. Her collection The Sea Gives Up The Dead was chosen by Carmen Maria Machado for the Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction and is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2025. With Jackie Hedeman, she is the creator of the audio drama The Pasithea Powder. She teaches English and creative writing to high school students in Seattle, Washington.

Citino Poetry Award

1st Place Undergraduate: Theodore Jasper
"Genesis"
Judge's comments: This poet emits a distinct voice within these poems. From the beginning, readers are invited into the first poem before we move into a narrative of the speaker’s childhood. There is a masterful use of metaphor, simile, and other poetic elements. This folio also tackles difficult subjects with frankness.

2nd Place Undergraduate: Maddie Betts
"original sin" and other poems
Judge's comments: This poet’s collection evokes a melancholic mood, presenting us with atmospheric details that emit tension through juxtapositions of both traditionally positive and traditionally negative content. There is also a close attention to language that makes use of various poetic elements like alliteration and assonance.

1st Place Graduate: Isaiah Back-Gaal
"Purple Rain" and other poems
Judge's comments: This poet utilizes specific details that evoke the five senses, imagery that adds texture, and a kind of lyrical narrative that creates cohesion between the poems (familial stories, imagined scenes, cultural traditions, etc.). I also find that the use of form shows a deep understanding of how a poem’s form should match the content.

2nd Place Graduate: Andrew Romriell
HIV: An Abridged Biography
Judge's comments: This collection of pieces engages in hybrid form, as the poems within appear to act as poetry and memoir. There is a true intimacy in what is revealed, and the content, searching for a partner, explores the many challenges one faces within the judgment and coldness of online dating apps.

Judge: Genevieve Betts is the author of the poetry collections A New Kind of Tongue (FlowerSong Press, 2023) and An Unwalled City (Prolific Press, 2015). Her work has appeared in Sleet Magazine, Hotel Amerika, The Tishman Review, The Literary Review, Cloudbank, Sky Island Journal, and in other journals and anthologies. She teaches for Arcadia University's low-residency MFA program and is an assistant professor at Santa Fe Community College.

Haidee Forsyth Burkhardt Award in Creative Nonfiction

Awardee: Julie Kim
“OKAY GOODBYE THANK YOU”
Judge's comments: It’s a taut yet graceful unfolding of identity in the context of family, community, and culture.

Honorable Mention: Claudia Owusu
"Where the Body Don't Break, Still Blacks & Blues"

Helen Earnhart Harley Creative Writing Fellowship Award in Fiction

Kathryn LeMon
"(dis)taste"
Judge's comments: The three elegant and unsettling stories included in the manuscript exhibit an impressive stylistic range as the writer marries food writing with horror, plays with structure and tone, and leans into the grotesque and the strange to explore human appetites of all kinds. Reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe and, more recently, Stephanie Danler and Carmen Maria Machado.

Judge: Keija Parssinen is the author of The Ruins of Us, which earned a Michener-Copernicus award, and The Unraveling of Mercy Louis, which won an Alex Award from the American Library Association. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic.com, The New York Review of Books Daily, The Southern Review, Gulf Coast, Puerto del Sol, and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, and Hedgebrook. She is an Associate Professor of English & Creative Writing at Kenyon College.

Helen Earnhart Harley Creative Writing Fellowship Award in Non-Fiction

Awardee: Danielle Batalion Ola
"I Had Better Tell You Where I Am" and "In Search of Higher Ground"
Judge's comments: Intricately braided and self-assured, these pieces brim with urgency and a breathless pursuit for understanding.

Honorable Mention: Claudia Owusu
"Eulogies for Girlhood"

Judge: Eliza Smith’s work has appeared in The Cut, The New York Times, and elsewhere and has been awarded an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. With Haley Swanson, she is co-editor of the anthology Sex and the Single Woman: 24 Writers Reimagine Helen Gurley Brown’s Cult Classic (Harper Perennial). She earned an MA in magazine writing from the Missouri School of Journalism and an MFA in creative nonfiction from The Ohio State University.

Helen Earnhart Harley Creative Writing Fellowship Award in Poetry

Awardee: Claudia Owusu
Drown or Drought
Judge's comments: I loved the terrific singing in every poem, the rich details. Heaven was “the little circle of sky that blinded.” I loved the communion with family and place, the spiritual and physical vitality from Ghana to Columbus, Ohio. There is wonder and humility and grace here. I felt nourished by these merciful, sustaining, joyful poems. After reading these poems, I felt hope for humanity.

Honorable Mention: Skyler Barnes
"Stela" and 15 poems

Honorable Mention: Lexie Smereka
"Detroit River Tour" & Other Poems

Honorable Mention: Sappho Stanley
"Dropped Corduroy," "Rapture Anxiety," "Like an old teddy bear I'm filled with walnuts & estrogen & men," "In Ohio," "The Moon Reverse," "I'm From Blue," "Lakeside Mirror Stage"

Judge: Alessandra Lynch is the author of Daylily Called It a Dangerous Moment (Awardee of the Balcones Prize for Poetry, one of the NY Times’ Best Books of 2017) and three other poetry collections. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The New England Review, Ploughshares, and other journals. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, MacDowell, and the Lannan Foundation. Her fifth collection, Wish Ave will be published in October 2024.

Tara M Kroger Award

Awardee: Nikki Barnhart
"Static"
Judge's comments: I was immediately struck by this story’s rich reflective voice. I love the narrator’s movements through time, building out a complicated central relationship while resisting the easy moves towards nostalgia or cynicism. In many ways, "Static" strikes me as a story about storytelling. This meditative consideration of distance and misremembrance left me thinking about what it means to love somebody for a long time—to love their many selves.

Honorable Mention: Heather McCabe
"Everywhere"

Honorable Mention: Spencer Newsad
"Year of the Snake"

Judge: Jennifer Galvão is a writer and teacher from New York. A graduate of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program, she is a Kenyon Review Fellow. Her fiction has been recognized with a Hopwood Award and support from DisQuiet International, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She teaches at Kenyon College.

Academy of American Poets Award/Arthur Rense Prize

Awardee: Misha Ponnuraju
"Letter to 外公 (or, Wàigōng, or My Mother’s Father)," "Hantu," "Omni Trium Perfectum"
Judge's comments: “Letter to 外公 (or, Wàigōng, or My Mother’s Father)" is a knock out--beautifully rendered, complicated, and heartbreaking. The footnotes are intriguing and provide a kind of curious relief from the tension in the poem. "Hantu" is imaginative and lovely. The repetitions of teeth and feeding are particularly effective. The form of "Omni Trium Perfectum" is interesting and ultimately effective. Overall this poet has a lovely way with image, language, and emotional intensity.

Honorable Mention: Isaiah Back-Gaal
"Protest Song for David Buckel" and other poems

Honorable Mention: Claudia Owusu
"What We Did as Children"

Judge: Jacqueline Allen Trimble

Vandewater Poetry Award

Awardee: Danielle Batalion Ola
"Cycles of Migration"
Judge's comments: This ghazal—or near-ghazal—is both fluid and continually dynamic, deftly balancing repetition and invention as it rings surprising, expressive changes on the word “butterflies.” Stanza by stanza, the poem deepens and expands, with something new awaiting at every turn. The poem entices and persuades through its abiding of uncertainty and through its attention to the music of its vowels and consonants. Even to the final line, the music persists.

Honorable Mention: Katelyn Roth
"When I am Quiet…"

Judge: Chris Forhan is the author of three books of poetry: Black Leapt In; The Actual Moon, The Actual Stars; and Forgive Us Our Happiness. He has also published two works of nonfiction, most recently A Mind Full of Music: Essays on Imagination and Popular Song. He has won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and three Pushcart Prizes and lives in Indianapolis, where he directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Butler University.

David O. Frantz Thesis Award

Sarah Grace Smith
The Softest Touch
Advisor: Lee Martin

English Prize for Best Scholarship on Social Justice

Awardee: Wonjoo Lee
Candace and the Model Minority Stereotype in Severance
Instructor: Joe Ponce, English 4587 (Autumn 2023)

Honorable Mention: Olivia Dearth
Humor, History, and Strategy — the BSU’s Open Letter to Dick Gregory
Instructor: Beverly Moss English 4567S (Autumn 2023)

Genevieve M. Critel Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Composition

Awardee: Maddie Betts
Guess Who: A Portrait of Ohio Writing Center Consultants
Instructor: Allison Kranek, CSTW 3467S (Spring 2023)
Judge's comments: By bringing in primary research examining Writing Center tutor specializations across four public universities in Ohio, [this paper] best highlights the importance of their chosen topic and the implications of not questioning what they term “the STEM desert” in Writing Centers. This essay nicely demonstrates how, despite claims to do so, Writing Centers may not necessarily meet all their clients’ needs due to an overrepresentation of language and humanities tutors. Furthermore, the piece articulates key questions other researchers might ask in seeking to address this issue and further research the topic. While the paper could have drawn on more than genre theory in articulating the problem, and cited other works that examine the STEM lack in WC expertise, it presents a clear exigence and articulation of a contemporary and pressing problem.

Honorable Mention: Kienna Whitman
Understanding the Appeals of Animal Crossing
Instructor: Jonathan Buehl, English 4189 )Spring 2024)
Judge's comments: This essay on the affective rhetorical strategies of Animal Crossing engages in a thoughtful and detailed analysis of pathos within the video game. The author develops a strong theoretical framework that mobilizes Burke’s guilt-redemption cycle to analyze their first-hand in-game interactions. Through this close reading, the essay savvily asks readers to consider the uses of guilt and shame as strategies in video games and the larger implications for video users/players.

Lord Denney's Players Introductory Shakespeare Prize

Awardee: Anna Pichler
“We Cannot All Be Masters”—Lucian Msmati’s Compelling Portrayal of Iago in Iqbal Khan’s Othello
Instructor: Tamara Mahadin, English 2221 (Autumn 2023)

Honorable Mention: Eliza Porostosky
Love in Shakespeare's Macbeth: A Catalyst of Destruction and Restoration
Instructor: Antony Shuttleworth, English 2220 (Autumn 2023)

Lord Denney's Players Advanced Shakespeare Prize

Awardee: David Jordan
Unto Some Monstrous State: Political Philosophy in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
Instructor: Alan Farmer, English 4520.01 (Spring 2023)

Honorable Mention: Nick Orzo (Honorable Mention)
Prospero's Utopia: All for One
Instructor: Jennifer Higginbotham, English 3398 (Autumn 2023)

Robert E. Reiter Prize for Critical Analysis

Maddie Betts
The Reveille Remembers: Sarah Piatt’s “Army of Occupation,” Arlington, and the Lost Cause
Instructor: Elizabeth Renker, English 4592 (Autumn 2023)

Elaine H. and George W. Hairston Scholarship

Blaise Reader III

Robert N. and Sharon S. Gandee Endowed Scholarship

Ava Moore

Rosemarie Sena Scholarship for Excellence in English Studies

Sarah Garfinkel

Virginia Hull Diversity and Inclusion Award

Madina Davlatboyeva

Minor in Professional Writing Unpaid Internship Grant

Emily Burnheimer, Lizzie Eidt, Danielle Ingram, Minaicis Mata, Madison Roth, Kienna Whitman, Katherine Hayek, David Heilbrunn

Summer 2023

Jules Christensen, Samuel Grady, Christina Johnson, Corinne Kemper, Orianna McDavid, Maggie McNea, Skylar Morgan, Christopher Nelson, Brant Profitt, April Scott, Brandon Weaver, Sydney White

Autumn 2023

Saynab Ahmed, Kinsey Barrows, Megan Brokamp, Emma Brown, Hannah Cameron, Brent Campbell, Lauren Chatman-Wright, Madison Clingman, Leah DeVito, Cynthia Dimel, McKenna Dunn, Niah Eppley, Aaron Hannah, Elizabeth Holup, Evan Hopkins, Nia Jones, Riley Lauchard, Catherine Leahey, Karlie Marlatt, Madison McAlear, Michael Miyoshi, Maya Oerther, Thomas Patteson, Owen Phillips, Mekaela Riley, Jamie Rogers, Olivia Saunders, Chloe Simmons, Markayla Sites, Jennifer Starr, Connor Telford, Adrianna Watral, Kyle Zawada

Spring 2024

Michelle Altstaetter, Garrett Anderson, Elaina Arndt, Jack Baker, Olivia Balogh, Amberly Barchus, Madeline Betts, Elizabeth Blackshire, Madison Bolden, Kate Brierley, Jacklyn Bryan, Brett Bumgarner, Sophie Clark, Jose Claudio, John Cook, Keelyn Coulson-Blackshear, Elizabeth Davis, Kaylee Dawn, Seth Demmel, Brittni Dixon, Lizzie Eidt, Matison Elliott, Sydney Ellis, William Engle, Connor Estrel, Kaylee Farr, Ana Fierros Haro, Cassie Forsha, Elliot Fryman, Carson Garcia, Nikolaos Georgakopoulos, Kealy Ghezzi, Abigail Hayes, Paige Heitkamp, Bright Hianno, Alexander Hill, Sarah Holbrook, Destiny Hutcherson, Ashleigh Inglesby, Theodore Jasper, Isabelle Johnston, William Jones, Jade Josie, Eriana Kellis, Samaria Kitchen, Katherine Koenig, Isabel Kossow, Shelby Larson, Amber Le, Rachel Lemaster, John Lewis, Hunter Lyons, Aidan Macaskill, Natalie Mack, Nicholas Madama, Anna Marinov, James Maruca, Jillian Matejka, Erin McLauchlan, Paul Mendola, Hallie Mettler, Garret Miller, Rebecca Monahan, Ava Moore, Brynne Mosteller, Ethan Mueller, Anushka Mukherjee, Grace Mullett, Mary Nader, Peyton Onstad, Charles Ort, Kaitlyn Patton, Benjamin Paull, Wick Perry, Samantha Piazza, Ethan Powell, Diane Probst, Connor Quinn, Sofia Racevskis, Matthew Raskin, Lindsay Rogers, Samuel Sallerson, Alexis Salsbury, Alexis Scheer, Carrie Scherer, Samantha Shasky, Vivian Shenberger, Shradha Shendge, Michaela Singleton, Audrey Smith, Kyle Smith, Lara Solano, Hattie Spangler, Elizabeth Sparks, Sheterria Sparks, Abigale Sprankle, Madeleine Stauch, Clarise Steiner, James Taylor, Macey Thees, Cody Thomas, Ashley Thompson, Faith Troup, Milla Troyer-Reed, Annie Tschetter, Michela Urso, Maximilian Vernau, Maxwell Ward, Sydney Watterson, Camden Wegner, Victoria Wertz, Meredith Whitaker, Kienna Whitman, Marley Wilkinson, Shalea Williams, Abbey Wilson, Ariana Winbush, Ruotong Wu, Michelle Zheng

English Awards Celebration 2024

English Awards Celebration 2024

Business & Professional Writing

Kitty O. Locker Undergraduate Professional Writing Contest

Chen Ya and Siuha Anita Liu Award for Professional Writing

Kitty O. Locker Prize for Excellence in Business Communication

Kitty O. Locker Research Grant

Kitty O. Locker Travel Awards

Creative Writing

Reba Elaine Pearl Burkhardt Roorbach Award in Creative Nonfiction

Jacobson Short Story Award

Gertrude Lucille Robinson Award

Citino Poetry Award

Haidee Forsyth Burkhardt Award in Creative Nonfiction

Helen Earnhart Harley Creative Writing Fellowship Award in Fiction

Helen Earnhart Harley Creative Writing Fellowship Award in Non-Fiction

Helen Earnhart Harley Creative Writing Fellowship Award in Poetry

Tara M Kroger Award

Academy of American Poets Award/Arthur Rense Prize

Vandewater Poetry Award

Digital Media Studies

Digital Media Prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Work

Digital Media Prize for Outstanding Graduate Work

Writing & Information Literacy

Writing and Information Literacy in English Prize for Outstanding English 1110 Project

Award for Excellence in Teaching by a First-Year Graduate Teaching Assistant

Second-Year Writing

Second-Year Writing Outstanding Student Composition Award

Outstanding Graduate Teaching Associate in Second-Year Writing

Undergraduate Studies

David O. Frantz Thesis Award

English Prize for Best Scholarship on Social Justice

Genevieve M. Critel Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Composition

Lord Denney's Players Introductory Shakespeare Prize

Lord Denney's Players Advanced Shakespeare Prize

Robert E. Reiter Prize for Critical Analysis

Elaine H. and George W. Hairston Scholarship

Robert N. and Sharon S. Gandee Endowed Scholarship

Rosemarie Sena Scholarship for Excellence in English Studies

Virginia Hull Diversity and Inclusion Award

Minor in Professional Writing Unpaid Internship Grant

Graduate Studies

Estrich Paper Prize

Brian McHale Award for the Best Graduate Paper in Narrative Studies

English Graduate Human Rights Award

Muste Dissertation Prize

Alumni Grants for Graduate Research and Scholarship

Hayes Graduate Research Forum

Graduate Associate Teaching Award

Presidential Fellowship

College Awards

Honors Faculty Service Award

Outststanding Staff Award

Paul W. Brown Excellence in Teaching Award

Ronald and Deborah Ratner Distinguished Teaching Award in Arts and Humanities

Virginia Hull Award

University Awards

Distinguished Scholar Award

Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme Society of Fellows

President and Provost's Award for Distinguished University Service

Program of Excellence in Engaged Scholarship Award

Provost's Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Lecturer

Sphinx Honorary Member

National Awards

Folger Shakespeare Library Non-Residential Fellowship

NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resource Grant

NEH Scholarly Digital Project Grant

NEH Summer Stipend

Departmental Awards

Department of English Staff Member of the Year

English Undergraduate Organization Associated Faculty of the Year

English Undergraduate Organization Professor of the Year

English Graduate Organization Professor of the Year

Marlene Longenecker Award for Teaching and Leadership

Joseph V. Denney Award for an Outstanding Senior English Major

Retirements and Other Departures

Retirements

Graduating Student Employees

Degrees Conferred: Bachelor of Arts

Summer 2023