Lindsay Tigue, who earned her B.A. in English at Michigan State University in 2007, is being recognized for her outstanding post-graduate work at the University of Georgia. She is one of 100 doctoral students in the United States and Canada selected to receive a $15,000 Scholar Award from the P.E.O. Sisterhood. 

Tigue currently is a Ph.D. student in English/Creative Writing at the University of Georgia. She received the P.E.O. Scholar Award for her work on her dissertation. 

Tigue’s dissertation, a linked collection of stories, centers non-normative trajectories for women, exploring in particular, the way her characters connect to the deep and troubled histories of environmentally fraught places. Individual stories also investigate migration, family, history, and queerness; and they consider the intersection of public and private grief. Stories from this collection have been published in Moon City Review the Masters Review.

Tigue also is the author of the Iowa Poetry Prize-winning poetry collection System of Ghosts and is a 2014 MFA graduate of Iowa State University, where she received the Research Excellence Award, among other honors.

To this day, I use the skills of researching, integrating information, and composition that was introduced to me at Michigan State.

“My Honors English undergraduate degree at MSU prepared me well to go on to a master’s degree and eventually a Ph.D. program,” Tigue said. “The Creative Writing courses I took introduced me to the processes of drafting and workshopping early on and I have carried that experience with me. I clearly remember working on projects late into the night at the library and even finishing a literature paper on a bench next to the Red Cedar River. To this day, I use the skills of researching, integrating information, and composition that was introduced to me at Michigan State.”    

The P.E.O. Scholar Awards, established in 1991, are one-time, competitive, merit-based awards intended to recognize and encourage academic excellence and achievement by women in doctoral-level programs.

Tigue’s $15,000 award, which is the maximum amount awarded, will provide her with partial support for study and research. Award recipients are a select group of women chosen for their high level of academic achievement and their potential for having a positive impact on society.

The P.E.O. Sisterhood, founded January 21, 1869, at Iowa Wesleyan College, Mount Pleasant, Iowa, is a philanthropic educational organization dedicated to supporting higher education for women. There are approximately 6,000 local chapters in the United States and Canada with nearly a quarter of a million active members.