Anne Price Lautenschlager received a $16,000 W.L. Mackenzie King Open Scholarship for the 2026–27 academic year, largely in recognition of her academics, research accomplishments, leadership, and engagement during her studies at Mount Allison University. Lautenschlager has worked as an access services assistant at the R.P. Bell Library at Mount Allison for the past two years.

Lautenschlager is pursuing a master’s in creative writing at the University of Cambridge. She credits Mount Allison’s supportive academic environment and the faculty mentorship she received through the English and Classics departments with helping her develop the skills and confidence to pursue her graduate studies.

She says the opportunities available at Mount Allison also helped her pursue other awards and scholarships throughout her post-secondary studies.

“One of the reasons that I was able to get those awards and scholarships is because of the environment that Mount Allison creates. There's a lot of opportunity if you're willing to really apply yourself and I very much appreciated that,” she says. “The English department and the Classics department, which are the departments that I dealt with most often, the professors are absolutely amazing and they are really willing to find opportunities for you.”

The W.L. Mackenzie King Open Scholarship is awarded to graduates of Canadian universities and supports recipients pursuing further academic study. Candidates are nominated by their home universities before competing at the national level. One Open Scholarship is awarded each year.

Receiving the Mackenzie King Scholarship represents more than financial support for Lautenschlager. The recognition affirmed the value of her research and creative work, giving her renewed confidence to continue pursuing her ambitions.

During her undergraduate studies, Lautenschlager received an Independent Research Grant (ISRG) for a project examining Victorian Gothic literature and early 20th-century spiritualism. The research also contributed to her honours thesis, Theatrical Ghosts, where she explored the life and work of Hester Dowden, a Victorian-era English medium who claimed that the ghost of Oscar Wilde visited her and wanted to write more. Previous treatments of Dowden have often focused on the question of whether she was or was not genuinely communicating with Wilde's ghost.

“I wanted to bypass this and focus on her achievements as a scholar because regardless of whether or not we think that she was really speaking to all of these dead famous English people, she was an absolutely incredible scholar,” Lautenschlager says.

At Cambridge, she is completing a fantasy novel as her dissertation project.  

"My Cambridge dissertation is both a celebration and a challenging of the tropes that most high fantasy readers will be accustomed to,” says Lautenschlager. “When I built the foundations of this story, I primarily relied upon my research into the genre, the literary and classical knowledge I gained from my time at Mount Allison, and my experience as a professional wrestler before attending university".

Lautenschlager also received the O'Brien Fellowship of $13,500 and received the official certificate this past summer from The Honourable Louise Imbeault, O.C., O.N.B., Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick and Honorary President of the O'Brien Foundation.

Looking ahead, she hopes to build a career as an author. She credits the opportunities, faculty mentorship, and academic foundation she received at Mount Allison with helping her develop the research, writing, and professional connections needed to pursue that goal. Lautenschlager is blogging about her experience abroad. You can follow her journey on her Instagram page: @annegoestocambridge