蓝莓视频

Each year English majors and minors have the opportunity to earn membership in two honor societies and win awards based on their research and writing abilities.

Honors

• Sigma Tau Delta international English honor society
• Gamma Upsilon national media honorary society
• Research Honors

Creative & Critical Writing Awards

• Academy of American Poets Prize
• 蓝莓视频 Department of English Prize for Short Fiction (formerly Babbitt's Prize for Short Fiction)
• Peter J. Theune Memorial Essay Prize
• President's Club Senior Writing Award

Journalism Awards & Scholarships

• W. E. Schultz Award for Excellence in Media Management
• Harvey Beutner Award for Journalistic Excellence
• Harvey Beutner Memorial Scholarship
• Ashley Wilson Award for Argus Staffer of the Year
• Illinois College Press Association Awards

Recipients of 2024 IWU Creative Writing Awards:

蓝莓视频 Department of English Prize for Short Fiction

Winner: MJ Soria for 鈥淟ifestyle Tips鈥�

Honorable Mention: Asia B. Rogers for 鈥淛ust Once"

Judge: Jac Jemc

About Soira鈥檚 work, Jemc writes: 鈥淪oria's story employs a voice that is unmistakably assured. There is humor and irony in the way the character of Nessa moves through the absurd spaces of contemporary life. Soria creates an atmosphere that is at once sinister and flippant, causing the reader to wonder if Nessa is capable of identifying the real threats surrounding her or if an unidentified risk lurks just outside of her awareness. A nihilism lines the story, asking, what does it matter?鈥�

IWU Department of English Prize for Short Fiction judge Jac Jemc is the author of three novels and two collections of short fiction. Her most recent novel is Empty Theater. Her work has received many honors, including a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. Jemc teaches creative writing at UC San Diego.

Peter J. Theune Memorial Essay Prize

Winner: Brook Pacchetti for 鈥淣ew Year, Same Place鈥� and 鈥淧aternity Scandal at the Funeral鈥�
 
Honorable Mention: Van Le for 鈥淎 Communistic McDonald鈥檚 Advertisement鈥�
 
Judge: Rachel Jamison Webster

About Pacchetti鈥檚 essays, Webster writes, 鈥淚 chose these essays for their shapeliness. Both are written about knotty and complex family situations, but the author has a sense of how to hone them to keep the reader鈥檚 attention and to focus, ultimately, on psychological awareness. Pacchetti varies her sentence length and achieves a pleasing and clarified prose rhythm. This approachable style contrasts nicely with the essays鈥� emotional complexity. The essays illuminate hard-won truths about life and family, about what we owe to others and to ourselves.鈥�
 
Peter J. Theune Memorial Essay Prize judge Rachel Jamison Webster is the author of five books, most recently Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family, hailed as a Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker. She teaches at Northwestern University.

Arthur W. Hinners & Louise Hinners Sipfle Poetry Prize presented by the Academy of American Poets

Winner: Farah Bassyouni
 
Judge: Diego B谩ez
 
Of Bassyouni鈥檚 poems, B谩ez writes, 鈥淚n lyrics that are intimately tender and burning with insight, Farah Bassyouni's poems navigate the spaces between mothers and daughters, between English and Arabic, between chance encounters with the divine at O'Hare Airport and afterthoughts of international students on a Greyhound bus (鈥榠 wonder what they鈥檇 think about Palestine鈥�). Whether whispering words for 鈥榤ercy鈥� and 鈥榣ove鈥� in Arabic, or conjuring the alimentary comforts of home (olive branches, tea with milk, lemon, and honey), Bassyouni asserts a lyrical legacy all her own, at once brightly hopeful and defiantly sincere: 鈥榠 am the land you couldn't burn / the souls you couldn't steal / i am the love you couldn't take away.鈥欌��

Arthur W. Hinners & Louise Hinners Sipfle Poetry Prize judge Diego B谩ez is the author of the poetry collection Yaguarete White. His work has received many honors, including fellowships from CantoMundo and the Poetry Foundation鈥檚 Incubator for Community-Engaged Poets. He teaches at the City Colleges of Chicago.