AWARDS

The Jerome J. Fischer Memorial Award is given annually to the most distinguished undergraduate essay written in a Villanova English course. The Fischer Award honors Jerome J. Fischer, who taught nineteenth-century British literature courses, as well as a variety of other courses, at Villanova from 1947 until his retirement in 1983. He died in 1984.

Jerome J. Fischer, image courtesy of The Villanovan

2023 Winners: Emily Hanlon is a junior English major and Irish Studies minor from Perkiomenville, PA. She currently serves as the Transfer Captain on Villanova's New Student Orientation Steering Committee and was a Transfer Counselor for the Orientation Program this past August. Within the English Department, she is a member of the English Student Advisory Council and is involved in Villanova's literary magazine. She also works on campus as an office assistant in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department.

Charlotte Ralston is a senior from Bethesda, Maryland, double majoring in English and Psychology with a minor in Irish Studies. She serves as both a writing tutor and an Assistant to the Director at the Villanova Writing Center and is an alumna of the Honors College’s Interdisciplinary Humanities cohort. After graduation, Charlotte will attend the Columbia Publishing Course at Columbia University in pursuit of a career in the publishing industry.

Previous Winners:

2023 - Cynthia Choo and Sarina Sandwell
2022 - Ryan Haggerty and Sarina Sandwell
2021 - Julia Valenti
2020 - Ariana Megerian
2019 - Gracie Stagliano
2018 - Gracie Stagliano
2017 - Blaire Bernstein
2016 - Kevin Madden
2015 - John Szot
2014 - Megan Plevy
2013 - Shanon Welch
2012 - Theresa Donohoe
2011 - Molly Schreiber
2010 - Max Stendahl
2009 - Jamie Kapalko
2008 - Daniel E. Trucil
2007 - Emily Trovato
2006 - Stephen Cornell
2005 - Kristy Wessman
2004 - Mark Napolitano
2003 - Valerie Kate Fernandez
2002 - Rebecca Corcoran
2001 - Michael Foley
2000 - Corinne Welsh
1999 - Jennifer Joyce
1998 - Cara LaColla
1997 - Chris Eagle
1996 - Wendy Anne Tucker
1995 - [not given out]
1994 - Michael DiRuggiero
1993 - Rosemary Scalo
1992 - Mary Kovalchick
1991 - Peter Naccarato
1990 - Sarah Pines
1989 - Anne Marie Ryan
1988 - Jon Lemole
1987 - Jill Stevens

The Margaret Powell Esmonde Memorial Award is given annually to the most distinguished graduate essay written in a Villanova English course. The Esmonde Award honors Margaret Powell Esmonde, who taught at Villanova from 1974 until her death in 1983. She was a specialist in Renaissance literature who also taught courses in science fiction and children’s literature.

Margaret Powell Esmonde, image retrieved from Children's Literature Association Quarterly

2023 Winner: Sarah Gregory is a second-year student in the English MA program and tutor in the Writing Center at Villanova University. She will graduate in May following the completion of her thesis on the novels of T. C. Boyle and climate fiction in the time of the Anthropocene. Her essay, “Reading and Writing as Translation / Leer y Escribir como Traducción: Ferré’s Language Duel as a Bilingual Text / Duelo del Lenguaje de Ferré como Texto Bilingüe” engages scholarship on bilingual texts to examine the possibilities in Rosario Ferré’s collection of poetry portraying the historical roots of colonialism through the movement of the Spanish and English languages. Taking into consideration Ferré’s unique background and the critical responses to her work, this essay argues that the refusal to designate either the Spanish or English poems within the collection as original or translation holds potential to dismantle the masculinist hierarchy that relegates translation work to faithless or inaccurate estimations of an original, purer text. Through this possibility comes a call-to-action for scholars to reconsider reading and writing as acts of translation and to advocate for language justice at all levels of society. She would like to thank Dr. Adrienne Perry for her wonderful course, The Art of Translation, and her guidance in researching and writing this essay.

Previous Winners:

2023 - Theo Campbell
2022 - Madie Davids
2021 - Anne Jones
2020 - Olivia Stowell
2019 - Avni Sejpal
2018 - Nicholas Manai
2017 - Laura Tscherry
2016 - AJ DeBonis
2015 - Eric Doyle
2014 - Theodora Hermes
2013 - Rebecca Hepp, Cara Saraco
2012 - Alexandra Edwards
2011 - Benjamin Raymond
2010 - James McAdams
2009 - Don James McLaughlin
2008 - John Breedlove
2008 - Rebecca Steffy
2007 - Rebecca Burnett
2006 - Karen Y. Lee
2005 - Marc Napolitano
2004 - Victor Sensenig
2003 - Deborah Gross
2002 - Brian Sweeney
2001 - Patricia Crouch
2000 - Laura Giuliani
1999 - Sharon Cournoyer
1998 - Marc Schuster
1997 - Mary Ann Quigley
1996 - Robert Duggan, Jr.
1995 - Gale White
1994 - Gale White
1993 - Daniel Hipp
1992 - Helen Goff
1991 - Sr. Elaine Marie Glanz, I.H.M.
1990 - Katrien Conlan
1989 - Janet Wallin
1988 - Anne Gallagher
1987 - Gregory Sullivan
1986 - Ellen Wilmot

The George D. Murphy Award in Creative Writing honors a longtime faculty member in the English department. The winner is chosen each year by a panel of Villanova faculty and a Philadelphia-area writer.
 

2024 Winner: Taleen Postian is a senior Art History and Political Science Major from New York. She is passionate about Armenian activism and curatorial studies, subjects that often appear in her poetry. She works for the Writing Center and the Villanova Art Gallery and is part of the leadership of the Villanova Armenian Students Organization, WXVU Radio Station, and Ellipsis Magazine. She has written for the Mirror-Spectator Newspaper, the Armenian Weekly, and the Villanovan. She thanks you for reading her work.

"The Martyr's Mine"

Santookht stood firm
Against her father, her king
With only a newfound faith to cling to
She was stripped of her crown
Thrown down and renounced
With only a newfound faith to guide her
Offered a choice by the tender hands of a father
The crown or the sword
To be wedded or beheaded

She grasped the sword
(my hand slipping into hers)
And swinging it upside down
Gently placed it back
in her father’s cowardly hands

And in choosing her own death
She crystalized her being:
Apricot amber encased a saint
The first Armenian martyr.

She was guided by faith; I am guided
by her. I'll only die a martyr
That’s a stubborn promise born of a life set in stone
Khachkars erected above my tomb

Stolen certainty and stolen life are braided
With the threads and the shreds of a genocide
My mothers of old whose braids were stolen
The Young Turks who saw no value in an Armenian life

When you are certain something’s going to happen
Like death and taxation (based only on occupation)
It makes sense to be terrified
when the enemy takes that pledge as their own.
Plotting to take your life into their unworthy hands
and snuff it out

So it makes sense to latch onto the tale of a girl
who said, ‘no, that death is my own’
And grabbed the sword and swung at the mirror
But her reflection did not shatter. We see her.

Her father ultimately missed
His name forgotten, Santookht’s etched on my rib.
Turkey failed too
I am still here. yes Hay em.

Santookht
My life's crooked
Priorities bent
By a birth on the rent
of a lineage wrenched back
I was supposed to be dead

But if she missed would we have missed her?
Would the history books have nixed her
from the footnotes she clung to?
With her head in my hands I weep
Only when in death’s hands is her life sung to

And if that’s the case
I want to own my death
I'm owed that at the very least
A martyr's not born they're made
Let me make mine

2023 Winner: Makena Kerns

About George D. Murphy

The George D. Murphy Award in Creative Writing honors a longtime faculty member in the English department. George D. Murphy, PhD, received his BA in 1949 and MA in 1951 in English from the University of Notre Dame and his PhD in American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania in 1964. He joined Villanova’s English Department in 1954 and retired in 2000 after 46 years of service. His scholarly publications focused on American writers of the 20th Century. While at Villanova, he was known for his exquisite sense of humor and a singular gift for recalling and recounting a host of humorous tales. While an undergraduate at Notre Dame, he was on the editorial board of its literary magazine—The Juggler of Notre Dame—and contributed a number of poems, short stories and critical essays. He returned to creative writing at the end of his life as a way of coping with grief over his wife’s death and produced many first-rate poems.

The winner of the English and Honors Award in Creative Writing is chosen each year by a panel of Villanova faculty.
 

2024 Winner: Justin Badoyen is a senior Philosophy major minoring in Theatre and Creative Writing. He has spent most of his academic pursuits at Villanova focusing on early modern drama and performance philosophy with an eye toward studying aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Justin’s first foray into Creative Writing was through playwriting, which helped him foster an understanding of the various craft elements that make up enjoyable storytelling. Now, as a senior, he hopes to continue exploring and practicing the many genres and forms of Creative Writing so that he may better bring his stories to life.
 

Ars Requirit Totum Hominem [The Art (of Alchemy) Requires the Whole Person] (An Excerpt)

As Mr. Young sipped his tea, he felt the heat banish the winter air from his lips. It was his particular habit to spend his morning sitting out on the balcony, no matter the weather. His wife would often chide him, claiming he was bound to fall ill lounging about in the cold. Mr. Young silently reveled in the fact that he had yet to prove her right. There was something about the silence that pleased him. The roaming air and boundless skies gave his imagination room to grow, a luxury his job rarely afforded. As the owner and overseer of two coal mines just South of Derbyshire, orders and meetings constantly filled his schedule. His mind was focused on manifests and wages, a hard contrast to his youthful passions. As his tea cooled, he thought about what he would do if his whole day was like this morning: free. Mr. Young imagined riding out in the country with his wife in tow, nowhere to be. He imagined himself hunched over his desk, penning out a story or a short piece on the piano like he used to do in university. Mr. Young laughed at himself quietly, realizing that being stuck at a desk is what he does every day anyway.

Looking down, he saw his cup was empty now and resolved himself to go about the rest of his day. Returning inside, he could hear his wife’s singing coming from the reading room, a piece by Dvorak, “Als die alter Mutter.” He learned how to play the song on piano for her birthday a few years ago. Mr. Young tidied himself and descended the stairs. He watched his two terrier pups chase each other across the foyer and around the corner. He could see something stuck inside the mail slot at the base of the stairs. It was a parcel and a bundle of letters. The parcel looked to be a small box wrapped in brown paper. Mr. Young presumed it had been there for a while as it was cool to the touch. There were five letters tied to the parcel with butcher’s twine. Across the face of the letter on the top of the pile read, “To Damien Young.”

2022 Winner: Dylan McMahon

The English Honor Society is composed of senior English majors with high GPAs both overall and in English courses. Members are selected in the spring of their senior year. (They do not have to apply.)

2024 English Honor Society

Nicole Amoachi
Emily Attisano
Monroe Byer
Grant Carey
Hannah de Melo
Meaghan Falconer
Caitlyn Foley
Riley Hawkins
Allison Hilliard
Kylie Horan
Rachel Jordan
Erin Kruh
Steven Makino
Alexandra Marino
Jordan Mastrodomenico
Catherine Messier
Megan Moore
Skylar Musick
Julia O’Keefe
Charlotte Ralston
Rachel Rhee
Megan Rigione
Abby Thompson
Elizabeth Weiss

The Villanova English Department’s Core English Honor Roll recognizes students whom instructors have identified as exceptional students in their Core English courses. This honor is for the one or two students in each Core English course who demonstrated the most aptitude in scholarly writing about literature.
 

For the spring semester of 2024, the following students made the Core Honor Roll:

Juliana Abdelsayed-Roblero

Andrea Alvarez

Mikaela Anthony

Arman Borghei

Levi Brekke

Isabelle Clare

William Corliss

Anne Curtis

Luke Daly

Amyah Davis

Sarha Flores

Kathryn Gallant

Grace Hagan

Lindsay Homolka

Victoria Karcz

Hai-yan Koenig

Sofia Krzewicki

Geena Kye

Josephine Lee

Christina Lorino

Sophia Macchia

Aiden Maurais

Joseph Nyre

Julia Pennella

Kristina Perez

Hannah Roszko

Luis Salgado

Charlie Seipel

Sarah Stolze

Vincent Vandiver

Alyson Verga

Sean Wade

Julia Wagner

Sarah Yevchak

The Core Literature and Writing Seminar Essay Award has been given to the best papers written for English 1975.

2024 Winner - Emma Stecher

Emma Stecher is a Junior Psychology major with minors in Political Science and Latin American Studies from San Francisco, California. She is also a member of the honors program. Throughout her undergraduate education, she has explored a multitude of her academic interests with an emphasis on the role of storytelling and imagination through both social science and humanities lenses. Her essay, “Are you there, God? It’s me, Nicole” explores this merging of interdisciplinary study through Nicole Chung’s memoir All You Can Ever Know. She discusses the role of storytelling during childhood and belief in those stories as a powerful force in developing a sense of self. For Emma, this essay not only served as a chance to critically unpack a piece of writing, but also a return to her love of literature. For this reason, she intends to complete an English minor during her senior year. On campus, Emma is involved with groups such as Peers Offering Wellness Education and Resources (POWER), Community Outreach of Villanova, and the McNulty Institute, and is an undergraduate research assistant under the supervision of Dr. Deena Weisberg. She is excited to continue taking courses in the English department as she prepares to pursue postgraduate education.

Previous Winners:

Spring 2023 - Madison Rhodes
Spring 2020 - Walter McDonald
Spring 2019 - Jordan McMeans
Spring 2016 - Katie Vaughn
Fall 2016 - Bella Burda
Fall 2015 - Frank Fazio and Ciara Earrey
Spring 2014 - Nicole Conway
Fall 2014 - Sean Campbell and Kevin Madden    
Spring 2013 - Roderic Hutton
Fall 2013 - Patrick Ciapciak
Fall 2012 - Paige Kennedy and Danielle Sekerak

The Literary Experience Essay Award has been given to the best papers written for English 1050.

Previous Winners:

Spring 2012 - Nicholas Cho
Fall 2012 - Alissa Foti
Spring 2011 - [not awarded]
Fall 2011 - Monica Solis
Spring 2010 - Anne Stohlquist
Fall 2010 - Lien Trieu
Spring 2009 - Michael Tomae, Nakoya Wilson
Fall 2009 - Ellie Garbade
Spring 2008 - Kailee Fowler
Fall 2008 - Greg Cappa
Spring 2007 - Marissa Zator
Fall 2007 - C J Hodukavich
Spring 2006 - Christina Park
Fall 2006 - Jennifer Latz
Spring 2005 - Christian Skonier
Fall 2005 - Stephanie Cody
Spring 2004 - Emily Trovato and Kerri White
Fall 2004 - John Zurbach
Spring 2003 - Monica Borgone
Fall 2003 - Nadia Nauss
Spring 2002 - Elizabeth Micklow
Fall 2002 - Adrienne Sanetrik  
Spring 2001 - Matt Varga
Fall 2001 - Matt Nespoli
Spring 2000 - Andrea Flood
Fall 2000 - Michael Knerr and Ryan Zitnay  
Spring 1999 - Jocelyn Trufant
Fall 1999 - Kate Schramm
Fall 1998 - Megan Knecht

The Senior Achievement Award is given to a senior for distinguished contributions to the life of the department, including intellectual leadership, mentorship, and community participation.

2024 - Rachel Rhee