Scholarship prizes help Leslie Selcer find a way

Leslie Selcer is currently a senior at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she is studying English literature, secondary English education, and French. She is the editor in chief of Walkabout Creative Arts Journal and is planning to spend the next year student teaching and writing an honors thesis about the construction of gender roles in romantic young adult literature. Leslie’s first book—Twelve Months (Walden Press 2012)—was published when she was seventeen, and she is currently underway with a second (and much-improved) novel entitled Fragile People. In her spare time, she enjoys downloading fonts, playing the ukulele (haphazardly), and taking long walks to her microwave.

“I have been incredibly fortunate in the last few years to win two scholarships for essays written during my undergraduate career here at CU. Both the Harold D. Kelling Essay Prize and the Joanne Easley Arnold Award have been enormously impactful both upon my ability to pay for school and upon my self-identification as a writer and researcher in my field. It’s been quite a journey for me to get where I am now as a senior for the usual plethora of reasons – being unable to rely on any financial aid from my family, graduating with a high school class of twelve people and having to adjust to a new kind of academic environment, and generally having no clue of how to navigate the college world thanks to my first generation status. Regardless of that, the privilege of attending school and studying what I love has kept me dedicated to my work and eager to seize every opportunity I am lucky enough to be granted. Receiving these scholarships has helped me to believe that I’ve finally sort of figured out my place is in all this madness. Writing literary analysis and critical response has been a growing interest for me, in addition to my love of creative writing, and I find myself developing as a scholar with every semester. Having my essays chosen for these awards makes me more certain that I occasionally have good ideas and that I have a shot at succeeding in graduate study.

“In my education classes, our professors tell us that teachers must find ways to validate students’ work so that students can feel like there’s someone listening, someone who cares, someone who will help them find a way to follow their passion. You’ve provided that for me, and I can’t thank you enough.”

2015-16 Scholarship Awards:
The Harold D. Kelling Essay Prize

2014-15 Scholarship Awards:
The Joanne Easley Arnold Award