The Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) Program is delighted to announce the winners of the 2025-26 Annual Undergraduate Writing Competition. The competition awards cash prizes for original student work exploring issues of gender, sexuality and/or feminist thought in categories of poetry, academic essay and short fiction/personal essay.
This year’s winners are as follows:
Poetry
- First place: Melissa Converse – Blue’s Clues Never Covered This
- Second place: Eemi Toma – I Do Not Want to Be the First
- Third place: Kylee Foster – The Phenomenal Fawn
Academic Essay
- First place: Erin DeFever – Beyond the Binary: Speculative Fiction as a Lens for Postgender Futures
- Second place: Allena Williams – Voices in the Margins: Biblical Women Reclaiming their Narrative
- Third place: Candy Saputo – Domestic Violence: A Plague Infiltrating the Souls of Our Women
Short Fiction/Personal Essay
- First place: Sarah Soria – The Consistency of Wool
- Second place: Erin DeFever – Matryoshka: A Cruel Legacy
- Third place: Melissa Converse – Survive
Congratulations to these winners and thanks to all the students who submitted their work.