{"id":25634,"date":"2026-04-09T10:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T14:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/?p=25634"},"modified":"2026-04-09T16:45:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T20:45:31","slug":"annual-wgs-writing-competition-winners-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/2026\/04\/09\/annual-wgs-writing-competition-winners-announced\/","title":{"rendered":"Annual WGS writing competition winners announced"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.udmercy.edu\/academics\/special\/wgs\/\">Women&#8217;s and Gender Studies (WGS) Program<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>This year&#8217;s winners are as follows:<\/p>\n<h6>Poetry<\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>First place:<\/strong> Melissa Converse &#8211; <em>Blue\u2019s Clues Never Covered This<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>Second place:<\/strong> Eemi Toma &#8211; <em>I Do Not Want to Be the First<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>Third place:<\/strong> Kylee Foster &#8211; <em>The Phenomenal Fawn<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h6>Academic Essay<\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>First place:<\/strong> Erin DeFever &#8211; <em>Beyond the Binary: Speculative Fiction as a Lens for Postgender Futures<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>Second place:<\/strong> Allena Williams &#8211; <em>Voices in the Margins: Biblical Women Reclaiming their Narrative<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>Third place:<\/strong> Candy Saputo &#8211; <em>Domestic Violence: A Plague Infiltrating the Souls of Our Women<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h6>Short Fiction\/Personal Essay<\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>First place:<\/strong> Sarah Soria &#8211; <em>The Consistency of Wool<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>Second place:<\/strong> Erin DeFever &#8211; <em>Matryoshka: A Cruel Legacy<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>Third place:<\/strong> Melissa Converse &#8211; <em>Survive<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span class=\"markmx2z7wf4z uM2yb\" data-markjs=\"true\">Congratulations<\/span> to these winners and thanks to all the students who submitted their work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The WGS Program announces the winners of the 2025\u201326 Annual Undergraduate Writing Competition, recognizing outstanding poetry, academic essays and short fiction\/personal essay exploring gender, sexuality and feminist thought. Join us in congratulating this year\u2019s talented student authors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6,4404],"tags":[355,5708,6310,580,3920,7398],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbwnTV-6Fs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25634"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25634"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25637,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25634\/revisions\/25637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}