Arielle Meisel and Johnny Yeldham named 2022 recipients of McLeod Writing Prize

Congratulations to Arielle Meisel and Johnny Yeldham for being this year's recipients of the Dean James E. McLeod First-Year Writing Prize!

Pictured: Johnny Yeldam, Clara McLeod, and Arielle Meisel

This year’s winners of the Dean James E. McLeod First-Year Writing Prize were announced Wednesday night at The CWP Presents: Emerging Voices Showcase in Bowles Plaza. The event also featured readings from the winning essays.

The 2022 recipients of the McLeod Writing Prize are Arielle Meisel, from the Sam Fox School of Art & Design, for the essay “Rainbows, Joy, & Closets: Domestic Labor Gets a Makeover,” and Johnny Yeldham, from the College of Arts & Sciences, for the essay “Poetic Injustice: The Weaponization of Rap Lyrics.”

The McLeod Writing Prize was created to encourage first-year students to begin engaging in research in the early stages of their undergraduate careers; to understand that scholarship is a creative form of expression that can reach others in real and meaningful ways; and most importantly, by fully participating in the process of research and writing, to see themselves as scholars in the making. Two prizes are awarded each year; one to a student in the College of Arts & Sciences, and one to a student in McKelvey School of Engineering, Olin Business School, or Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

Runners-up include Jade Zhang, from Arts & Sciences, for the essay “Trading Chinatown for Costco: The Future of Commercial Gentrification on St. Louis' Olive Boulevard,” and Valerie Passanisi, from McKelvey School of Engineering, for the essay “Omitted Modernity in Edward Curtis's The North American Indian.”

Honorable mentions include Jeffrey Camille, from Arts & Sciences, for the essay “Black is in Fashion: A Window into the Contemporary Fixation of the Black Body,” and Rachel Lu, from Olin Business School, for the essay “Honorary Whites vs. Yellow Peril: How Social Media Altered Asian Identity Throughout the Pandemic.”