Spotlight
Achievements by Faculty and Grad Students
Wong Appointed as Inaugural Poet Laureate
On June 2, 2025, current doctoral student Carmin Wong was announced as the inaugural Poet Laureate of State College. In this position, Wong will serve the community by promoting the consumption and creation of poetry in State College.
Additionally, Wong was featured in the 2025 Shirley Graham Du Bois Creative-in-Residence. Her showcase, "Them Poems Along Won't Save Us' was featured online by the Academy of American Poets and broadcast on WBUR.
Congratulations, Carmin, on all of your accomplishments!
Henry James Letters Receives MLA Seal
Congratulations to Michael Anesko: Volume 19 of The Complete Letters of Henry James has received the MLA Approved Edition Seal. Well done, Michael!
Dr. Verna Kale Elected President of the Hemingway Society
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Verna Kale, Associate Editor for The Letters of Ernest Hemingway and Associate Research Professor of English at Penn State, has been elected President of The Hemingway Society for the 2026-2028 term.
Congrats to Dr. Kale on this honor!
Shara McCallum Wins Pavoucek Shields Faculty Award
Shara McCallum, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Penn State, won this year's Pavouček Shields Faculty Award, which recognizes the accomplishments of a tenured faculty member in advising and mentoring on behalf of women at the university.
Eunice Toh Accepts Position at Del Mar College
Eunice Toh, the 2020-21 CALS Graduate Research Assistant, has accepted a tenure-track job offer from the English and Philosophy Department at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. Eunice’s dissertation, “Black Cosmo-cologies: Rebirth and Renaissance in the Long Nineteenth Century,” was directed by Gabrielle Foreman and Sean Goudie. Congratulations, Eunice, on the job market success!
Davis Chosen For Honors Title in Poetry from the Massachusetts Book Awards
Noah Davis’s book of poems The Last Beast We Revel In was chosen as one of two Honors Titles in Poetry from the Massachusetts Book Awards. Davis is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at Penn State and his new collection, "All We Can Fit in Our Throats," was recently named a finalist in the 2026 National Poetry Series Open Competition.
Congratulations, Noah, on these achievements!
Faculty and Student Commemorate Hemingway and the Museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences
The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia closed its museum's doors at the end of September, 2026. Members of the Hemingway Letters Project commemorated Hemingway's connections to the museum in two publications. Graduate faculty member Verna Kale was quoted in a piece from the Philly Voice on a fish named after Hemingway by the Academy. Graduate student Ryan Bohn published a blog post on Hemingway's relationship to the Academy of Natural Sciences on the Hemingway Society website.
