Denise Gess Literary Award

Denise Gess Literary Award

Denise Gess Literary Award

The Rowan Writing Arts Department in the Ric Edelman College of Communication and Creative Arts annually hosts the Denise Gess Literary Awards. This student competition, named in honor of the late Writing Arts Associate Professor Denise Gess, offers cash awards for the winning poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction submissions in each category of $200 for first place, $100 for second, and $50 for third.
 
All currently enrolled undergraduate and graduate students in good standing at Rowan University are eligible to submit their original work for consideration. Students may enter in more than one genre. 
 
Edward J. Czwartacki Award for Fiction 
The Edward Czwartacki Award for Fiction was created in 1985 with donations from family members and friends. Czwartacki, who studied creative writing and literature at Rowan, died in the surf in Ocean City, N.J. while assisting an Amish woman whose long skirt became water soaked as she waded along the ocean’s edge.
 
Dr. Antoinette C. Libro Award for Poetry 
The Dr. Antoinette C. Libro Award for Poetry, first awarded in 1989, was renamed in 2025 thanks to contributions from poet Dr. Antoinette C. Libro, emeritus professor and former dean of the Ric Edelman College of Communications & Creative Arts.
Pat B. Tweedie Award for Creative Nonfiction 
The Pat B. Tweedie Award for Creative Nonfiction, first given in 2010, honors the memory of a woman who was a newspaper columnist, magazine contributor, and book reviewer, though her true passion was teaching writing to nontraditional, mostly female students. The award has been generously endowed by Dr. Timothy and Julie Linehan of Petoskey, Mich.

For more information, please contact Writing Arts professor Heather Lanier at lanier@rowan.edu 
 

2025 Award Winners

Dr. Antoinette C. Libro Award for Poetry

Graduate Winners

First Place: Kelli Hughes - "Resonance"; "Wife of Delaware Ave"; When Ma & Pa Built the Canyons"
Second Place: Piper Egan - "Discount Divine" 
Third Place: Ellie Wash "Unreliable Narrator"
Honorable Mention: Aleikza Diaz - "The Seal of Biliteracy"
Honorable Mention: Shannon VanMeter - "In the Green North" 

Undergraduate Winners

First Place: Edward Valderrama - "Cotard's Intrusion" 
Second Place: Rev Foster - "Dig Deep"
Third Place: Grace McGory - "Home as an Adjective"
Honorable Mention: Dimitrius DeMarco - "Snowy Evenings" 
Honorable Mention: Alexa Diamant - "The Mother's Curse"  
 

Edward Czwartacki Award for Fiction

Graduate Winners

First Place: Jason James - "The Lemon"
Second Place: Aleikza Diaz - "Violet in the Sun"
Third Place: Tiers Congdon - "The Mug"
Honorable Mention: Piper Egan - "Hell, Bureaucracy, and Other Assorted Things"
Honorable Mention: Kelli Hughes - "Twelve-Thousand Pound Vendetta"

Undergraduate Winners

First Place: Katherine Claggett - "Angel Armies"
Second Place: Grace McGory - "Such Terrible Fortune"
Third Place: Cecilia Combs - "Love Letters"
Honorable Mention: Jack Long - "An Assortment of Groceries"
Honorable Mention: Cheri Czyzewski - "A Tragedy of Misconceptions
 

Pat B. Tweedie Award for Creative Nonfiction

Graduate Winners

First Place: Julianna Perez - "Growing Taller"
Second Place: Ellie Wash - "Exploring Gender in Dreams and Dresses"
Third Place: Jason James - "The Final Out"
Honorable Mention: Kelli Hughes - "What We Hang On Our Walls"

Undergraduate Winners

First Place: Beth Anderson-Hoffman - "Four weeks in an ex-con's shoes"
Second Place: Emma Teiper - "Television and Cannibalism"
Third Place: Steven Flickinger - "Dictionary of Professional Wrestling"
Honorable Mention: Evanie Moreno - "My ChiriQui"