Graduate Awards 2022

Robert H. West Award: Outstanding Graduate Student in Literary Criticism and Creative Writing   

Named in honor of Robert H. West, former department head and faculty member, this fund supports the work of outstanding graduate students. 

Winner: Ben Rutherfurd

Ben grew up in Sonoma County, California and received his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona. His poems have appeared in Spork, Green Linden, Territory, and Agape, and his reviews in the Volta. He is currently a contributing editor at Green Linden, an online journal of poetry.

The Christy Desmet Memorial Fund  

Named in honor of faculty member Dr. Christy Desmet, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of English and Director of the FYC/UGA Writing Center, this fund will support graduate students working in British Literature prior to 1900.

Winner: Emily Beckwith

Emily is a PhD candidate specializing in 19th-century British literature. Her dissertation, “The Affordances of Liminal Places: Wales in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel,” examines the possibilities that Wales’ in-between status offers not only for narrative structure and function, but also for situating Wales in new ways in relation to England, Britain, and the British Empire.

Robert E. Park Essay Award  

Established by the Class of 1912 in honor of Robert E. Park, former head of English, this fund supports a prize given each year to the author of the best essay written for a graduate course in the Department of English.

Winner: Brianna Philips

Brianna is a rising third-year PhD student in English, First Year Writing Instructor (GTA), and graduate assistant for the English Department’s newsletter. She received her M.A. in English in 2021 from George College & State University. Her work focuses on the female voice, noise, and narrative in the Long Nineteenth-Century British Novel.

Patricia J. and Hubert H. McAlexander Graduate Award in American Literature

Named in honor of emeritus professors Drs. Hubert and Patricia McAlexander, this award recognizes outstanding work in the fields of Canadian and/or United States literature.

Winner: Hannah V Warren

Hannah is a doctoral candidate at the University of Georgia and a Fulbright scholar; her recent critical work includes an article on Black feminism and monstrosity in N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season in Extrapolation and a forthcoming pedagogical chapter on teaching eco-monstrosity. She is the author of the poetry collection Slaughterhouse for Old Wives Tales (Sundress Publications, Winter 2023) and two chapbooks.  

Calvin S. Brown and Edwin M. Everett Award

Named in honor of Calvin S. Brown and Edwin Everett, former UGA faculty members, this fund supports graduate student travel to scholarly and professional meetings.

Winners: Nneoma Ike-Njoku and Maxime Berclaz

Nneoma Ike-Njoku is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Creative Writing department. The Brown and Everett Award will allow her to travel to Steepletop, the former home of poet/activist Edna St. Vincent Millay in Austerlitz, NY, where Ike-Njoku will spend a month as a Millay Arts Core Residency Fellow working on her dissertation project, a novel.

The Alice C. Langdale Graduate Awards in English

Named in honor of alumna Alice C. Langdale, this fund supports awards that recognize the outstanding work of graduate students within the Department of English.

Winners: Nate Dixon and Morgan Richardson Dietz

Nathan's creative work has appeared in The Georgia Review, FENCE, Tin House, Carolina Quarterly, Redivider, and elsewhere. His critical/academic work has appeared or is forthcoming in MELUS Journal, 3:AM Magazine, Transmotion, and Renaissance Papers, where he previously served as assistant editor.

Morgan recently defended her dissertation, "Political Portions: Women and Hunger in Contemporary South Asian Fiction," and will graduate with her Ph.D. in May. 

Michael G. Moran English Graduate Award

Winners: Safeer Hussain and Phillip Brown

Safeer Hussain is an international student in the second year of his Ph.D. in English. His area of interest is Postcolonial Studies. He is an HEC-Pakistan fellow.

Phillip A. Brown is a graduate student in the M.A. program in English literature and an instructor in the First-Year Writing program. His research interests are nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American literature and critical theory.

Jane Appleby Fellowship in English

Named in honor of Jane Appleby, this fellowship supports graduate study in the Department of English.

Winners: Nate Dixon, Mikaela Warner, Hannah Warren, and Christina Wood Martinez