A Wichita State University student will be awarded Wichita Professional Communicators’ annual $2,000 scholarship to pursue her studies in creative writing and communications. Hannah Holliday of Olathe, Kansas, works as a tutor in the WSU creative writing center and plans to graduate in December of 2023. 
“Grammar has always been extremely important to me,” Holliday said. “But I realized how much I truly enjoy learning grammar rules and correcting other people’s work when I had to edit an entire staff’s articles.
“I thoroughly enjoy reading other people’s work and helping them convey their message in a clearer way. Because of this innate love for editing, I will be pursuing a career in publishing as a poetry editor after I graduate.”
Holliday is gaining first-hand experience as poetry editor for Mikrokosmos, WSU’s literary magazine. She enjoys serving as outreach coordinator for the WSU chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the National English Honors Society.
“Hannah is a strong writer with a knack not only for clear communication but innovative and memorable ideas. In English 323, she constructed a persuasive essay comparing the Queen of Sheba in the 14th-century Ethiopian tale Kebra Negast with the hero Rama from the ancient Indian epic Rāmāyana. Hannah argued that although both texts center on powerful and royal figures, they normalize those royals through universal struggles like family dynamics or leaving home for the first time,” explained Katie Lanning, an assistant professor of English at WSU.
“Hannah wrote a compelling study of the way texts across history and across the globe use exceptional characters to tell relatable stories about the comforts and conflicts that ultimately make us all human. It was an insightful bit of writing, exceptionally engaged with its textual evidence and rhetorically effective in building a strong argument.”
Deadline for the annual WPC scholarship is the first Monday in March. More details are on the Scholarship page.
“Wichita Professional Communicators are so proud of Hannah’s accomplishments and that our annual scholarship award is financial support encouraging more students to stay in the communications field,” said Wilma Moore-Black, WPC scholarship committee co-chair.