Spring Capstones: Creative and Critical Works from the Department’s Finest
by Peyton Williamson ’27 and Daniel Graham ’26
This year’s senior English Capstone presentations showcased the stunning range and depth of the department’s creative and critical work. Spanning three evenings, students shared their projects that explored themes that ranged everything from identity, grief, love, memory, rebellion, language, and healing—often through genre-defying forms. From novels and screenplays to poetry collections and academic essays, these Capstones reflect not only the individual voices of their author but also the intellectual curiosity, emotional resonance, and interdisciplinary thinking that characterize the department as a whole. Below are some brief summaries of each presentation given.
Night 1:
Kaliana Andriamananjara – Fire & Ice
A speculative novel exploring identity, trauma, and rebellion in a world where people with superpowers are oppressed; the protagonist grapples with the murky line between justice and control.
Alma Angantyr – Stairwell to Heaven
A tender love story between two queer Mormon missionaries, this piece challenges the tension between faith and sexuality and offers a joyful fictional resolution for those in similar real-life situations.
Ivory Dove – A Night at Camp Eurydice
Originally a play, this darkly imaginative story follows six girls trapped in a warped version of their summer camp, using horror and myth as a metaphor for the pain of adolescence.
Brian Maddox – In the Event I’m Dead
A reflective work of creative nonfiction seeking to understand the ego, love, and human condition, written as a tribute to those who have shown the author love.
Claire Marko – Between the Earth and the Sky
A character-driven narrative following Ruthie, a reclusive young woman who must confront her anxieties and her past during a road trip from Nebraska to Chicago.
Nicolas Matrajt – Into the Cave or Out of the Bush, or Was It the Other Way Around?
This genre-blending romance and survival story plays with tropes to create a chaotic, fast-paced adventure with the primary goal of delighting the audience.
Lauren Petro – A Life for Death
A midwestern urban fantasy about a grief-stricken god of death who forms a new bond with a mortal woman, exploring themes of identity, secrecy, and human connection.
Nina Rogers – Refracted Reflections
A collection of essays on biracial identity, blending memoir with speculative narrative by allowing different versions of the self to exist and interact across time.
Geneve Thomas-Palmer – The Glancing Blow
This screenplay reimagines trauma and healing through the story of two women who travel back in time to meet their teenage selves, balancing realism with narrative triumph.
Night 2:
Leyden Streed – ¡La Virgen!
A comedic coming-of-age screenplay about a Catholic girl in St. Paul who secretly writes fairy smut as a way of navigating her sexuality and religious identity.
Leah Wasson – Warrior, Woman, Witch
A critical analysis of Queen Margaret in Shakespeare’s histories, framing her as a disabled character who subverts power structures through her otherness and resilience.
Sofia Doroshenko – The Final Tournament
Set in a futuristic caste society built on genetic modification, this sci-fi narrative follows an unmodified girl fighting to prove her worth among the enhanced elite.
Night 3:
Lucy McNees – Deposition
A lyrical poetry collection centered on sincerity in language, drawing from the poet’s personal experiences with family, romance, and self-relationship.
Ahlaam Abdulwali – Canopy
Poems exploring matrilineage, grief, and language loss, including erasure poetry based on interviews with Somali refugees to reclaim silenced voices.
Nolan Manz – AMERICAN HIGHWAY
A poetic exploration of home, indigeneity, and generational trauma, weaving the imagery of highways with the lived experience of a Cherokee citizen.
Veronica Kruschel – Mouthful
Chronologically structured poems about self-discovery and chosen family, using nature and baking as metaphors for love and independence.
Katie Kong – Silence on El Dorado
A meditative poetry collection navigating grief, migration, and colonial mythology, with silence and displacement as central motifs.
Kai Apollo Illig – Necronyms
A thematically structured manuscript of poems on childhood, transness, and grief, using the metaphor of inherited names and insect life to examine transformation and loss.
Leila Fulghum – Sedimentary Memory
Blending paleontology and poetry, this collection reflects on memory, loss, and the body as an archive, including the performance of a “song poem.”
Zeam Porter – Gaia Willing
A spiritual and personal exploration of Black Native identity, using poetry to meditate on cultural legacy, haunting, and healing.
Katie Abramson Newman – The Stones in a Monument
This collection investigates perfectionism, ADHD, and poetic identity through seasonal cycles, self-doubt, and the tension between control and acceptance.
Eva Markham – Tender to the Land
A musician’s foray into poetry, this work reflects on death, time, and the Earth, using lyrical form to get closer to emotional truth.
It is always an honor to get to see all the passion and talent that the English department has, and it’s inspirational to see how hard all the seniors have worked on their Capstones. Great work everyone, we are so proud!