USU Students Attend the 2026 Sigma Tau Delta Convention

Eighteen English Department undergraduate students, based in Logan and Statewide campuses, flew to New Orleans to participate in the 2026 Sigma Tau Delta Convention from March 29-April 1. The theme for this year’s annual English Honors Societies international convention was “Second Lines & New Beginnings,” and students were invited to read from their accepted critical and creative writing, listen to keynote speakers including Jesmyn Ward, and participate in workshops, all while networking with other English students and professionals. USU Associate Professor Michaelann Nelson, who serves as both the Statewide chapter’s advisor and the Far Western Regent, was the convention chair.

At the convention awards ceremony, USU Eastern student Dakota Mecham was awarded third place in the Isabel Sparks President’s Award for Common Reader-Focused Writing category. Her creative nonfiction piece “JACK.” was created at USU while in Associate Professor Jason Olsen’s class with the assignment to write from a non-human perspective.

“I had just read three books back-to-back by Jesmyn Ward where she writes from different perspectives and had recently adopted my severely previously abused rescue dog, Jack. I always wished he could talk to tell me his stories, and that’s what space this piece came from,” Dakota reflects.

The honors society runs two annual journals, the Sigma Tau Delta Review and the Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle. Logan students Sadie Olsen and Kayleigh Kearsley were published in the Review for their essays “From the Monstrous to the Mundane: Queer Interpretations of Dracula through Dracula Dailey” and “Ireland Personified: Women Representing Ireland in Irish Drama,” and Ella Stott’s piece “Divine Nature” was published in the Rectangle and awarded the Elizabeth Holtze Creative Nonfiction Award. The editions became available online shortly before the convention, and all three students were invited to read excerpts from their published work alongside the other authors.

For Sadie, the topic of her published paper was something that had been in her mind for a year or two before she wrote her thoughts down.

“The topic was near and dear to my heart,” she notes. “I always want more people to learn about both how relevant and queer old novels can be and about how online spaces interact with literature in very genuine and new ways, so I hope that my paper can potentially be a starting point for some people to dive into those worlds.”

Another publication was released at the convention, with the second edition of the Far Western Region’s literary journal, Intraminutia, being handed out. Kayleigh and Ozkar Jensen were both published multiple times in the journal — Kayleigh for her creative nonfiction essay “A Place at the Table” and poems “Grief” and “Foot in Mouth” and Ozkar for his poems “Sonnet on a Setting Sun,” “Ode to Apathy,” and “Alaverdi.”

On his publication, Ozkar comments, “Being an author has always been a dream of mine, so I’m glad that some of my poems got accepted to Intraminutia. It tells me that I’m on the right path towards achieving it. I’ve submitted to journals in the past, but this is the first to accept my work. I still have a ton to learn. I’m hoping to improve my skills as a writer and continue to get more work published.”

Throughout the convention, students read at and attended panels filled with their peers from USU and around the world.

“So often in English classes, we never get to interact with the finished products of our peers. We only ever get to see their drafts,” Sadie says, “so I love any chance I get to watch people read their finished works. I also met so many wonderful and intelligent people from other colleges, and I got so many Instagrams and emails at those events, which I hadn’t expected but absolutely loved.”