- Deadline for submissions is June 15, 2023
- A faculty signature of support must be sent
- Email your work as a PDF or Word Document and the cover sheet to Arianne Hartsell-Gundy
Jumbled letters (photo by Laineys Repetoire - CC-BY)
What is the Rudolph William Rosati Creative Writing Award?
The Rosati Creative Writing Prize is awarded each spring in recognition of an outstanding work of creative writing. All Duke first year or sophomore students are eligible to submit work for consideration. Projects may be any genre and take any form (audio/video, digital media, etc.), but must include a substantial creative writing component. The Rosati Prize was established in 1978 by Walter McGowan Upchurch in honor of Rudolph William Rosati “to encourage, advance and reward creative writing among students at the University and particularly among undergraduate students.”
Prize: $1500
Is my paper eligible?
- You must be a Duke first year or sophomore student (or just finished that year). Duke juniors and seniors may apply for the William Styron Creative Writing Award.
- You may submit multiple, different projects in a given year but each project should be submitted individually with an accompanying application cover sheet
- Submitted projects must have been written during the current academic year
- At this time submissions must be written in English
- No minimum or maximum length required
How do I apply?
To be eligible for the Rudolph William Rosati Creative Writing Award, email the following to Arianne Hartsell-Gundy by June 15, 2023:
- application cover sheet (see form)
- The creative work (send written projects as either a Word document or pdf. If it's a multimedia project, please send URL of the project or email Arianne Hartsell-Gundy for alternative means of delivery)
- A faculty signature of support (see form)
- The faculty member should e-mail the signature of support in a separate file to Arianne Hartsell-Gundy
How is a winner chosen?
- The selection committee, consisting of two Libraries staff members and two faculty members, judges the papers
- Projects are judged based on quality and originality of writing
- The committee reserves the right to split the award among more than one author, or to award no prize
For more information
Contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy, Librarian for Literature (arianne.hartsell.gundy@duke.edu), for more information.
Previous winners
- 2022 Jocelyn Chin for Waiting at the Well: Essays, Thang Lian for Kan i ton than lai (We will meet again): A Lai Mi Family Oral History, and Tina Xia for Waiting to be seen.
- 2021 Arlene Arevalo for ¿Quien Eres? (Who Are You?), Sarah Kwartler for Natural Products, and Sophie Zhu for Ex-Californica. Honorable Mention: Mina Jang for Twenty.
- 2020 Thalia Halloran for Blonde, Marium Khan for Othered, Valerie Muensterman for The Roadkill Club, Daniela Stephanou for her Poetry Portfolio, and Caroline Waring for St. Vitus' Dance. Honorable Mention: Christopher Kuo for Home World and Jabari Kwesi for Harlem's Own.
- 2019 Valerie Muensterman for Did You Forget Your Name?, Caroline Waring for The Roof, and Blaire Zhang for Sapiens.
- 2018 Alex Sanchez Bressler for Reports from South Texas, 1995-1999, Vivian Lu for Triptych, Samantha Meyers for BLUE, and Valerie Muensterman for Ditch: A Collection of Plays. Honorable Mention: Kelsey Graywill for Signals and Emery Jenson for Anti-Positivist Manifesto.
- 2017 Valerie Muensterman for Earth Once Removed Poems, Rajiv Golla for "From Graves to Gardens," and Sabrina Hao for My Name is Elizabeth
- 2016 Jamie McGhee for the "black boi" poems and Catherine Faye Goodwin for the play The Braveness of Jane
- 2015 Antonio Lopez, Jr. for his poem “Return to my Nativist Land”. Part I Why Was I Picked and Groomed by America, Part II Primer Misterio, Part III Excerpts from the Wickered Throne, Part IV Retorno a Mi Tierra Natal