Basil Payne

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

English Department

Basil Payne (they/them/theirs) is a senior English major and Linguistics minor in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Basil is the president of USU’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the national English honor’s society, and they are also the captain of the English Club. They have presented their work at several conferences in Denver and St. Louis as well at several USU research symposia. Basil is also a Writing Fellow. Writing Fellows are students who tutor peers one-on-one on their writing and serve as liaisons between students and professors. Basil is the 2023 Legacy Award winner, a 2023 Peak Fellow, and an URCO grant recipient. Their research and creative work focuses on multimodal poetry and accessible poetry. Basil presented their most recent project, Queering the Herbarium, at Research on Capitol Hill. This project focused on multimodal plant-art-poetry and the representation of queer, autistic voices. Basil is queer and autistic and projects their voice through their writing and art. One day, they hope to help others find their voices through writing. They are currently applying to Master’s programs in English and plan to eventually pursue a PhD and become a university professor.