The Samuel Goldwyn Writing Awards are bestowed annually by the Samuel Goldwyn Foundation

Samuel Goldwyn

Samuel Goldwyn was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.-Biography:...

, which is funded by a trust established by the Goldwyn family. Started in 1955, the awards are a competitive writing prize open to all University of California

University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

 students. As of October, 2006, the first prize in the awards is $15,000.

While winners are unknown students when they receive the award, many go on to be prominent writers and filmmakers. Previous award winners include Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...

, Allison Anders

Allison Anders

Allison Anders is an American film and television director. Anders has directed many independent films, on which she frequently collaborates with fellow UCLA film school graduate Kurt Voss.-Biography:...

, Carolyn See

Carolyn See

Carolyn See is the author of nine books, including the memoir, Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America, an advice book on writing, Making a Literary Life, and the novels There Will Never Be Another You and The Handyman....

, Eric Roth

Eric Roth

Eric Roth is an American screenwriter. He won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Forrest Gump . He also co-wrote the screenplay for Michael Mann's The Insider , the Steven Spielberg film Munich , and David Fincher's film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button , all of which were nominated for...

, James Robert Baker

James Robert Baker

James Robert Baker was an American author of sharply satirical, predominantly gay-themed transgressional fiction. A native Californian, his work is set almost entirely in Southern California. After graduating from UCLA, he began his career as a screenwriter, but became disillusioned and started...

, Jonathan Kellerman

Jonathan Kellerman

Jonathan Kellerman is an American psychologist, and Edgar and Anthony Award winning author of numerous bestselling suspense novels....

, Colin Higgins

Colin Higgins

Colin Higgins was an Australian-American screenwriter, actor, director, and producer. He was best known for writing the screenplay for the 1971 film Harold and Maude. and for directing the films Foul Play and Nine to Five .-Biography:Higgins was born in Nouméa, New Caledonia to an Australian...

, Pamela Gray, Carroll Ballard

Carroll Ballard

-Biography:Carroll Ballard started out making documentaries for the U.S. Information Agency, Beyond This Winter's Wheat and Harvest ; the latter was nominated for an Academy Award...

, and Scott Rosenberg

Scott Rosenberg

Scott Rosenberg is an American actor, screenwriter and film producer.- Biography :Born in Needham, Massachusetts in 1963, Rosenberg received a Bachelor's Degree from Boston University. He earned his MFA from UCLA...

.

The final round of the awards are judged by prominent writers, directors, and entertainers, who have included Moss Hart

Moss Hart

Moss Hart was an American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway.-Early years:...

, Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...

, George Stevens

George Stevens

George Stevens was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer.Among his most notable films were Diary of Anne Frank , nominated for Best Director, Giant , winner of Oscar for Best Director, Shane , Oscar nominated, and A Place in the Sun , winner of Oscar for Best...

, Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier

Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...

, Denzel Washington

Denzel Washington

Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr...

, Dustin Hoffman

Dustin Hoffman

Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....

, James Brooks

James L. Brooks

James Lawrence Brooks is an American director, producer and screenwriter. Growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life and passed the time by reading and writing. After dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the...

, David Mamet

David Mamet

David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director.Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received a Tony nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross . He also received a Tony nomination for Speed-the-Plow . As a screenwriter, he received Oscar...

, A. Scott Berg

A. Scott Berg

Andrew Scott Berg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American biographer. After graduating from Princeton University in 1971, Berg expanded his senior thesis, about editor Maxwell Perkins, into a full-length biography. Maxwell Perkins: Editor of Genius won a National Book Award, and his second book,...

, and David Lynch

David Lynch

David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...

.