Camden Poet Gets National Award For His Work In Prose
CAMDEN, NJ (CBS) -- A Rutgers-Camden English professor has a lot to celebrate this holiday weekend. He received a $25,000 prize earlier this month for his literary work.
Associate Professor Patrick Rosal says getting a prize from the National Endowment for the Arts just puts the cap on a pretty good year for him.
"The thing about it that's really special to me is that I won the fellowship not as a poet, which is the genre that I published all my books in, but in prose," Rosal told KYW Newsradio. "So it's really encouragement for me to pursue the projects that I'm working on right now."
Mind you, he also won a prize for his poetry earlier this year.
Now, as for what he's gonna do with the money...
"Being an artist, even a quarter century into my career, it's not a profession that pays a whole lot," he added. "And so, it's going to get me on decent financial footing for pretty much the first time in my life."
At least he's honest.
Rosal credits his family for much of his success. He moved to this country from the Philippines as a child, and says he's inspired by how his elders handled their struggles early on.
