By Kristen LaRue-Sandler — November 19, 2025
On November 14, 2025, the Department of English celebrated the winners of its annual Homecoming Writing Contest with a hybrid awards presentation and a reading from the students’ works. After that, recent grads and advanced doctoral students from the department gave “flash talks” about their research in progress. English Chair Nush Powell emceed the event.
This year’s student awardees were:
- Isdaly Reyes – poetry, for “Momentos”
- Ava Claus – scholarly essay, for “Beautiful Women, Powerful Nations: Constructions of Beauty & Their Geopolitical Implications”
- Elisa Ayala – fiction / creative nonfiction, for “La Sirena’s Blessing of Belonging”
Isdaly Reyes is an online film and media studies major at ASU, while simultaneously attending Dartmouth where she is pursuing her master’s in creative writing. At ASU, she is involved in the Pi Lambda Chi Latina Sorority Inc. and at Dartmouth she is an editor for their literary journal. She enjoys watching horror films and reading and writing romance stories.
Ava Claus is a double major in sustainability and English literature, with a minor in biological sciences. After graduating she plans to attend law school. Ava is the President of the College Council at the College of Global Futures as well as the Vice President of Campus Student Sustainability Initiatives. Outside of ASU she coaches a high school speech and debate team and works as a legal assistant at a law firm.
Elisa Ayala is an online English major, returning to school after about a decade off. Originally from Texas, she now resides in Northern Virginia with her partner and adorable tortoiseshell cat. Her favorite hobbies include playing TTRPGs and video games as well as voraciously reading queer speculative literature. She writes sci-fi/fantasy under the pen name V. M. Ayala.
Flash talks by recent grads and advanced doctoral students took place next. Sharing their 5-minute highlights of research-in-progress at this event were:
- Shannon McKeown, a PhD student in linguistics and applied linguistics: “Modality, Hedging, and Uncertainty in America's 2024 Election Night Coverage: A Critical Discourse Analysis”
- Chloe Jensen, a recent MFA in creative writing graduate: “Honeypot – A Novel.”
- Hannah Benefiel, a PhD student graduating this fall in writing, rhetorics and literacies: “How We Learn to Eat: Rhetorical Education and the Language of Recovery.”
The event concluded with lunch for all attendees.
Begun in 2007 at the suggestion of now-Professor Emeritus Randel Helms, the annual Homecoming Writing Contest recognizes the creative and scholarly writing of undergraduate students within the Department of English at ASU. The Department of English is gratified to continue this tradition of making awards for excellence in student writing.
If you weren’t able to attend the live event, you can watch the recording which will be available soon on the Department of English’s YouTube channel.