Gabrielle Rutman
The School of Creative Writing is pleased to congratulate Gabrielle Rutman, MFA. Gabrielles thesis is a novel entitled Beautiful Things Die Twice.
Gabrielle Rutman is an emerging writer living on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia (2022) and an MFA in Creative Writing (2025), both from UBC. Gabrielle writes across multiple genres including television, songwriting, and young adult fiction. Her work in the film and television industry includes four years coordinating events at VIFF (2022-25) and most recently coordinating the 2025 Whistler Film Festival Content Summit.
Beautiful Things Die Twice is a young adult novel. In June 2030, seventeen-year-old Zoe moves from Canada to Australia for her marine biologist mother’s fellowship at the Great Barrier Reef. Zoe’s plan is simple: keep her head down and save enough money to fly home to spend her last high school summer with her friends. But a job on a snorkelling boat, an impossible-to-ignore coworker named Gus, and a string of anonymous hate mail sent to her mom make that harder than expected. When she uncovers a corrupt alliance between her mother’s research institute and the tourism industry, Zoe must decide how far she’ll go to expose the truth, even if it means losing everything she’s come to care about.
Contact
Request more information about Gabrielle‘s thesis project using our 2026 Graduate Showcase Contact Form.