Adelina Rose Gowans (she/her) is a physically disabled writer and joyful girl in Detroit. She was born in rural South Carolina and is second generation Costa Rican/Honduran-American. Adelina is a YoungArts winner in Nonfiction, and has received awards and support from Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and the Poetry Society of England. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in 20+ literary magazines. She is a 2x Best of the Net Nominee. 

 

In 2025, Adelina graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.F.A. in Writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she was an Endowed Liberal Arts Scholar. During college, her creative practice was centered on interactive fiction, new media art, and cross-functional project management. Adelina is the creator, director, and producer of Realm Fisher (2023): a solarpunk interdimensional point-and-click adventure created by a nine-person team, and Last Night in Jubilee (2025): a magical realist visual novel set in Appalachia created by a twenty-five person team. Both projects were created with the support of grants from YoungArts. The Art of Last Night in Jubilee, a digital book of concept art and creator commentary, was also released in 2025. She was a 2022 Storytelling Collective Creative Laureate.

 

Alongside extracurricular game design, Adelina’s academic work around the gamification of early childhood language education has been recognized by several global design organizations. She is the recipient of a 2025 Red Dot Award in Brand and Communication Design, a 2025 Indigo Award gold winner in User Experience, Interface & Navigation for Games, Mobile Games, and Branding for Kids and a silver winner in Branding for Graphic Design, UX Interface & Navigation, Interaction Design for Graphic Design, and Product or Gadget Design, and a 2024 International Design Award honorable mention in Toys & Gaming/Educational Games & Toys. Additionally, during her time at SCAD, she taught Creative Nonfiction at the University of Virginia’s Young Writer’s Workshop.

Adelina is a Quality Assurance Specialist at Rocket Loans—working at the intersection of auditing, data analytics, and project management. She is available for speaking engagements, and recently spoke at the Michigan Growth Office’s 2025 You Can in Detroit rally. Her expertise spans disability theory in corporate spaces, inclusive indie game design, and intersectional growth and development in Detroit, Michigan. Adelina’s current creative practice includes Game Geometry (forthcoming 2026), a retrospective on five years of indie game design and a resource hub for emerging creatives—as well as a growing exploration in long-form prose writing and abstract colored pencil art.