W&L’s Rosalie Bull ’20 Earns Fulbright to Ecuador In September 2021, Bull will leave for a 10-month stay in Ecuador to develop a co-creative anthology of stories covering resistance and resilience networks in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

By Erica Turman
April 20, 2021

Washington and Lee University graduate Rosalie Bull ’20 has received a Fulbright grant to complete a creative writing project in Ecuador. The grant will fund developing a co-creative anthology of stories covering resistance and resilience networks, specifically, La Ruta de La Esperanza, or the Route of Hope, in the Ecuadorian Amazon. At W&L, Bull majored in English.

“This opportunity means I will be living the actual dream in the upcoming year,” Bull said. “I will have a year to think and write, my two favorite things, about the topic I am most passionate about, in the most powerful place on earth. I will learn about permaculture, indigenous agriculture and grassroots resilience from the people out there doing the work. And I will be able to support that work through my Fulbright, which means more than I can say.”

During her time at W&L, Bull visited Ecuador twice through the Johnson Opportunity Grant Program. It was through those visits that she first learned about La Ruta de la Esperanza.

“La Ruta de la Esperanza is a group of botanical parks that utilize permaculture and indigenous agriculture techniques in tandem to restore deforested or otherwise degraded land in the Amazonian region,” Bull said. With the support of the Fulbright grant, Bull will travel along the route and co-create a story with her host at each park.

Leah Naomi Green, visiting assistant professor of English at W&L, recommended Bull for the grant.

“Rosalie Bull is one of the most brilliant student I have encountered,” Green said. “It is clear that Rosalie could do nearly anything she would want to and that she could do it better, with more expansive intellect and energy, than nearly anyone else. It would come as no surprise if, within 10 years, Rosalie Bull is a big name in English literature, in either creative or critical writing.”

Matthew Loar, director of fellowships at W&L, also helped Bull prepare her application for the grant.

“Rosalie is a superstar young poet-environmentalist with truly original ideas and plans, and the W&L Fellowships Committee members were blown away by her Fulbright project,” Loar said. “It is clear that she is passionately committed to devoting her ample skills and energies to whatever it takes to save the Amazon rainforest.”

Since graduation, Bull has worked at Lexington’s Boxerwood Nature Center and Woodland Garden as the 2020-21 COREworks Environmental Fellow. She has helped Boxerwood develop a homegrown carbon-offset marketplace for Rockbridge County. After her Fulbright experience, she is contemplating earning her master’s degree.

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