Emily DeMaioNewton '18 receives top recognition in New York Times essay contest

The Elon English major was named one of five finalists in the newspaper's competition for college student writers.

Emily DeMaioNewton ’18, an Elon English major and Lumen Scholar, was recognized in May as one of five finalists in the New York Times Modern Love College Essay Contest. Her essay was chosen from among nearly 2,000 works by students at about 500 colleges nationwide. DeMaioNewton’s essay was published in the paper’s print edition on Sunday, May 21. Other winners in the contest included students from Trinity University, New York University, Columbia University and the University of Chicago.

In 2016, DeMaioNewton was among three winners in Elon’s Fredrick Hartmann Poetry Contest and she took second place in Elon’s 2015 poetry competition. She has also been published in Colonnades, Elon’s literary magazine.

DeMaioNewton was named an Elon Lumen Scholar in 2016, working with her faculty mentor, Drew Perry, on research titled “We Tell Stories in Order to Live: Building Women’s Shame Resilience Through Narratives.” She is a multifaith intern in Elon’s Truitt Center for Religious Life and was among 20 Elon delegates to the Parliament of the World’s Religions event in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2015. She was recognized with the Truitt Center Reconciliation Award in 2017 for her work, which exemplifies the vision of Edna Truitt Noiles and Douglas G. Noiles, who endowed the program.