Alumna was inspired into creative writing at SOU
Born in Vietnam, Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood ’13 came to Southern Oregon University as a struggling transfer student—the large campus and impersonal atmosphere had left her overwhelmed. At SOU, she found something different: small classes, genuine community, and professors who offered both practical guidance and heartfelt support.
“The SOU community felt genuine. The professors were kind, communicative, and accessible,” Rosewood recalled.
Since graduating SOU in 2013, she has gone on to earn an MFA at Columbia University in New York and while building an accomplished literary career. She has written numerous essays, reviews, articles, and creative works for online and print publications. Her debut novel, IF I HAD TWO LIVES, is out from Europa Editions. Her second novel CONSTELLATIONS OF EVE is the inaugural title from DVAN/TTUP, a publishing imprint founded by Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, a scholar of Asian American history and literature, and Pulitzer winner Viet Thanh Nguyen to promote Vietnamese American literature.
Her works can be found at TIME Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Salon, Elle U.K, Cosmopolitan, Lit Hub, Electric Lit, Catapult, Pen America, BOMB, among others. In 2019, her hybrid writing was featured in a multimedia art and poetry exhibit at Eccles Gallery. Her fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best American Short Story 2020, and was a finalist for the 49th New Millennium Writing Award. She won first place in the Writers Workshop of Asheville Literary Fiction contest.
Reflecting on her time at SOU, Rosewood credits the encouragement of friends and faculty as formative in her growth.
“At the time, I was still finding my voice. In this nascent stage as a writer when you are vulnerable, doubtful of your abilities, it’s very easy for your flame to get snuffed out by an unkind comment, a skeptical glance,” she said.
Among her many influential professors—Bill Gholson, Alma Alvarez, Kasey Mohammad, and Prakash Chenjeri—her closest mentor was Craig Wright.
“He was among the first to see something in my writing, to believe in my talent. He nurtured it, gave me the platform to share my writing with others, and helped me acquire scholarships,” she said.
Rosewood shared, “I’m indebted to Craig, and I’m grateful to be indebted to him. Craig taught us to slow down, to examine the effect of each word—the beauty and impact of a single line. From that first seed springs everything else: a story, a novel, a world. I, too, was a seed—a budding writer—nurtured by the compassion and rigor of my professors.”
She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and their daughter. Motherhood has expanded her creative pursuits: alongside her literary fiction, she is now at work on children’s picture books.
“Words such as ‘have faith’ and ‘believe’ are often so overused that they can lose their meaning, but that’s what the SOU community gave me. They had faith and they believed in me.”
Learn more: Abbigail N. Rosewood
