The Last Draft: EWLP Capstones 2025

As the fall semester comes to an end, most students are counting down the days until winter break. All except a few EWLP majors who are in the midst of finishing up their capstones.

 Winnie Kelley, Camilla Tucci, Keagan Mayes, and Lucia Guerrieri are all students in the EWLP program at the American University of Rome who are graduating in just a few weeks. Each have been furiously working on their final projects to mark their time at AUR. Kelley has opted for a creative non-fiction project centering on short stories from her home town of Joshua Tree. The newly gentrified desert town, two hours from Los Angeles, was once home to poverty and drugs. Her capstone details the personal stories of people from her hometown as they grapple between their hardships amidst growing tourism coming from Los Angeles. 

Similar to Kelley, Tucci is working on a creative non-fiction work on grief. It is titled An Observation on the Observations of Others on Grief. She has chosen four authors whose novels speak on their own experience with grief and then connects it with her personal discoveries on losing someone. The works she is discussing are, “Blue Nights” and “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion, “A Grief Observed” by C.S Lewis, "Committed: On Meaning and Mad Women” by Susan Scanlon, and “Motherless Daughters” by Hope Edelman. Tucci says she read these works when she was younger and has returned to them multiple times. The vignettes in her capstone detail her thoughts on these novels and grief as she has grown up. 

Mayes has chosen a multi-media approach to his capstone by combining his English major and film minor to create a video essay. He describes it as an “entertaining and educational video essay about the art of adapting literature into film.” He will focus on both David Lynch and Denis Villeneuve’s adaptations of the Dune. His video essay will also touch upon the TV show based on the Percy Jackson book series and a film adaptation of a book that has become obsolete. He wants to find a bridge between entertainment and education within the video essay to make sure the audience has enjoyed watching it while learning.

Guerrieri has chosen to expand upon a short story she wrote in a Fiction Writing class her first year at AUR. The story titled, “Dirty Girls” follows a young woman, Vittoria Guido, who is growing up in Sicily during the 1960s. She is surrounded by her small town and religious mother, who instills fears of impurity and scandal. The striking title is inspired by Vittoria's warnings from her mother that if a woman was sinful in secret, it would soon become apparent in their physical appearance in the form of dirt. She dreams of a life beyond the Mediterranean sea in the foreign land of Hollywood. After receiving a windfall from her Nonna’s inheritance, Vittoria is able to move to America. The second half of the story begins in 1971, as Vittoria finds herself lost in the underbelly of Hollywood.

We are so proud of these capstones and wish these seniors good luck on their future endeavors!