Creative Writing is a very odd field, especially at the beginning stages. As a teacher, I’ve had students show tremendous promise, students who were very happy on tracks headed into business, teaching, and engineering. As much as I encouraged them, I knew the goal was not to dissuade them from majors that could lead them to good jobs and financial security.
And yet, and yet, we want writers. We want their books, their plays, their movies.
And people become writers. I became a writer, even after majoring in Mathematics at TCNJ. I’m so glad I felt encouraged in the Creative Writing minor and in INK, of which I was president for two years after being treasurer and a founding officer. I’m so grateful my professors understood where I was and also where I might be headed. All my options felt open at the end of college. I think that’s as worthwhile as anything, especially with the job market today.
Not only that, but I understood my options during my senior year. My professors were honest and practical. They heard what I wanted—to go to graduate school immediately—and we made a plan that made that a smart decision—to go for a Masters degree before my Masters of Fine Arts. I got to extend my time writing my first book while getting the school environment I enjoyed most, first at the MA program at the University of Texas at Austin and then at the MFA program at the Pennsylvania State University at University Park. (Neither of these programs exist anymore, but that’s a different story.)
Now I’m a year away from my first book coming out with Wesleyan University Press. It’s titled Mr. West, and it can be described as an unauthorized lyric biography of Kanye West. Poems from the book have appeared in Boston Review, Witness, The Awl, Drunken Boat, Barrelhouse, and many other journals. And poems from this manuscript made up my application for the National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship that I was awarded in 2013. With this grant, I’ve been able to spend an amazing amount of time on writing in addition to taking on a volunteer editorial position at Saturnalia Books.