Announcing the 2026 Creative Writing Prize Winners
By Allison Schneider
We are thrilled to announce the student winners of this year’s creative writing prizes. The English Department extends warmest congratulations to these young writers.
The Reid Family Prize: Corinne Percy
Corinne Percy is a senior at Fordham Lincoln Center, majoring in film and television with a minor in English. As a filmmaker and screenwriter, Percy says she aims to use film to explore Black femme alterity, experimental form, and futurity. Her prize-winning piece, Island Girls, is a feature-length screenplay that follows two Haitian-American girls navigating young adulthood in New York City. “The film explores clashing cultural expectations, the pains of delayed adolescence, and the precarious divide between freedom and self-destruction,” Percy said of her piece. Percy draws inspiration from a number of writers, filmmakers, and artists, including Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Ava DuVernay, and Issa Rae. When she’s not writing, Percy likes to photograph her loved ones, spend time in nature, and has recently been listening to the score for Sinners (2025).
Bernice Kilduff White and John J. White Creative Writing Prize: Adithi Vimalanathan
Adithi Vimalanathan is an Economics and English double major with a concentration in creative writing. She has been working on her winning collection of poems since her sophomore year at Fordham. Her collection is ultimately about the way we connect with other people: “I’m always investigating the contours and patterns of my closest relationships and trying to piece out a pattern of intimacy in the ways we all intersect,” Vimalanathan said of her work. Right now, some of her favorite sources of inspiration are Pablo Neruda and Seamus Heaney. In addition to writing, Vimalanathan enjoys concert photography, discovering new bands, and long walks with good conversation.
Margaret Lamb/Writing to the Right Hand Margin Prize: Mustafa Motlani
Mustafa Motlani is a senior at Fordham Lincoln Center, majoring in economics with a minor in creative writing. His prize-winning short story, “Call and Response,” is about a young man’s struggle to escape from his surreal corporate job and return to his family after receiving news of his grandfather’s death. Some of Motlani’s greatest writing inspirations include Franz Kafka, Raymond Carver, and Ray Bradbury. Motlani also drew inspiration for this piece from Sufi music, which he was listening to while he wrote the ending of his story. “This inspired the rhythm and fragmentation into poetic form,” Motlani said. Outside of writing, Motlani enjoys traveling, playing sports, and going to the theater.
Academy of American Poets Prize: Coley Gibson
Coley Gibson is a first-year graduate student at the Fordham Graduate School of Social Service and a dedicated writer with work published or forthcoming in several literary magazines, including The South Carolina Review, Bayou Magazine, and The Santa Clara Review. Her prize-winning poem, “Variations on Violence,” is inspired by the idea that danger doesn’t always arrive as something recognizable. “My piece is about the perception of violence–the way we misconstrue or view violence as something seductive or inevitable,” Gibson said. Some of her greatest writing influences include Louise Glück, Sharon Olds, and Larry Levis. In addition to her writing and her social work studies, Gibson enjoys hiking, running, and being outdoors with friends.