Italy Writes Competition

Building on the tremendous success of JCU's Italy Reads program that began in 2009 with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), JCU launched Italy Writes, a national English-language writing competition for Italian high school students that includes on its panel of judges professors from one of America's most highly-ranked creative writing centers: the University of Iowa's International Writing Program.

Participate in the Program

Italy Writes engages high school students in the development of their English creative-writing skills and is open to all students enrolled in Italian or international high schools that do not have English as the primary language of instruction. Students compete annually for awards for the best creative writing piece. This national competition takes place each spring and the winners will be announced in May/June.

PCTO opportunity: Percorsi per le Competenze Traversali e per l'Orientamento (PCTO, Dlg. 107/15): students can  earn up to 10 hours for PCTO with the Italy Writes Competition. To earn PCTO recognition, students must be registered for this activity by their English teacher. Teachers can register their students for this program and receive additional resources that can be used in their in-class workshops with their students. PCTO certification is based on the teacher's evaluation of in-class activities, the use of the digital resources provided, and participation in the Italy Writes Competition.

All students are encouraged to participate in the contest regardless of their interest in earning PCTO certification.

This year, considering the ongoing discussions of the use of Generative AI in the classroom, we have added an invitation to participants to share their opinions about using Generative AI in creative writing (see option 3 below).

Students can choose one of the following three options: 1) Write a piece of Fiction (Narrativa), 2) Write a piece of Non-Fiction (Saggistica), or 3) Respond to the question: When does Generative AI expand your voice and when does it become a substitute? We anticipate students using all the tools available to them and are interested in seeing how these tools are used to develop an argument. Students who choose option 3 will respond to the above question following the guidelines listed below. All submissions for prompt 3) must be presented with annotations of the prompts used and how they were developed. This is an opportunity to express your opinions! We want to hear the voices of the students!

Resources: Student Guide to AI

1 March - Deadline to submit entries using this Contest Submission Form. The award ceremony will be held online late May/early June. Awards will be announced by the Writer in Residence for JCU's Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation. For more information write to [email protected].

Prizes for each category: 1st Place: €300 voucher; 2nd Place: €100 voucher 

A. Evaluation criteria: Submissions will be evaluated based: Response to question: quality of the argument and the prompts used as well as the degree of critical analysis of the question. Fiction: Technical Merits (i.e. grammar, spelling, mechanics); creativity in concept, imagination, innovation; storytelling style: dialogue, character, plat, narration, pacing, vividness of detail; Non-fiction: Technical Merits (i.e. grammar, spelling, mechanics); Rhetoric: effective development of an issue.

B. Do NOT include your name or any identifying information in your submission.

C. Your submission document will have the TITLE as the name of the file.

D. Upload your submission in Word or pdf format by March 1st.  

E.  All submissions to the contest must NOT exceed 1000 words

F. All submissions must be sent using this Italy Writes Submission Form. 

In May, the finalists will be invited to meet with an instructor in the JCU Writing Center to select a brief excerpt from their work to be read at the Award Ceremony in June.

According to Professor Carlos Dews, Director of the Creative Writing Institute, "Finding creative expression in a language other than one's own is an exciting exploration of the emotions at the core of the human spirit. Following the lead of Italy Reads, JCU hopes to continue our tradition of providing support for English language learning in the Italian high school community." Italy Writes is wholly funded by John Cabot University.

Historic Italy Writes external judge Professor Hugh Ferrer, Associate Director of the University of Iowa's International Writing Program (IWP) was guest speaker at the Italy Writes 2020 Award Ceremony. He congratulated the students and described briefly the role of the IWP as a UNESCO Creative City.

Professor Ferrer said, "I'm a big believer in the power of the creative imagination and the literary imagination to cross borders and to reach across and connect people who would have never met but who share the ability to imagine things and to feel things and to express themselves. It's been a real pleasure over the years to be part of JCU's Italy Writes Contest. An extraordinary amount of talent went into this year's finalists".

Italian high school teachers of English who would like to join the more than 170 Italian high schools already participating in one or more of the other Programs for High Schools offered by John Cabot University are invited to visit Programs for High Schools for information.

Learn more about studying English Language and Literature at John Cabot University in Rome.
Learn more about studying Creative Writing at John Cabot University in Rome.