Helene W. Koon Memorial Award

The 2025 WSECS Committee was pleased to confer multiple awards:​

First Prize: Evan Stackpole (Colorado State University), "1775-1776 Pennsylvania Runaway Clothing"
Second Prize: Angelina del Balzo (Utah Valley University), "'Ultra-orientalists' and the Arabian Nights on the London Stage"
Third Prize: Johann Long (California State University, Long Beach), "Henry Fielding’s The Female Husband: A Blueprint for Anti-Transmasculine Sentiments"

​​WSECS established this award as a tribute to the innovative scholarship, creative teaching, and generous spirit of Helene W. Koon, a scholar of eighteenth-century dramatic literature and professor of English at California State University, San Bernardino.

The WSECS Committee offers an award of $400 for the best paper presented at the annual conference by a graduate student, post doc, independent scholar, contingent or junior faculty member.  All nontenured delegates are encouraged to submit their papers via e-mail to the conference organizers no later than the Friday following the meeting.  Papers may not be longer than 2500 words plus notes.  The WSECS Committee will notify the winner, acknowledge the award on the society website, and present it at the following year’s conference.