What is your major and what brought you to LBCC?
My major is creative writing and this is my final year at LB. I wanted to do a community college before going to university, because I wasn’t quite sure what major I wanted to get a degree in yet and it just felt like it would be smarter to do the Oregon transfer program that LB has first.
Tell me about some of your classes and what they entail.
I take a lot of the writing classes like Terrance Millet’s fiction class. In that class we write a short story for the term, it’s usually 15-20 pages long. The best part about it is that we all get to do workshops with other students, so we get a ton of feedback and perspective from students that are going through the writing program and from students who are just taking the class for fun, so you get a wide range of feedback. I have also taken the nonfiction class multiple times and that’s through Dio Morales. That’s a fun one too, except we do several short, nonfiction pieces that are normally not even five pages long, but we do workshops in that one too.
Are there any stories you’ve been working on lately?
I’ve been working on an essay I wrote for Dio’s nonfiction class. It’s about how the objects we have around us take on a life of their own, and how they have all these stories that we don’t know about when they get passed on to other people.
What has been the most challenging part of the creative writing program?
I think the hardest part has been the availability of getting into the classes, because there are a lot they only have for winter term or only spring term. Aside from that, the hardest part in the classes is figuring out how to write on a deadline. One of the most important parts about writing is figuring out how to get it done, but when you go into these classes you don’t know how that works individually for yourself yet.
What has been the most rewarding part of the creative writing program?
The most rewarding part is that I get to hear so many different stories from so many different students. They all have these lives that I would have never even imagined. They’re so separate from my own life. I just really love hearing all those stories.
What are some of your hobbies and interests outside of school?
I really love to do road cycling, and it’s actually because it gives me a lot of time to think about my writing and to work through what I’ve been thinking about without writing anything down at all. Then I just go back from the top and I go through it again and again, and I actually get a lot more progress that way than writing down everything that I think of.
Are there any role models that you look up to in your life?
I absolutely look up to Dio Morales. I’ve spent a lot of time with her at the Creative Writing Club, getting things up and running. When I initially started going to the club, there were very few students and there was a lot of talk about everybody wanting to write but not having time to write. Dio and I set up the club so that we could get students to start writing again. If I were to become a teacher I would really like to become someone like her.
Could you tell me more about your involvement with the Creative Writing Club?
My first year at LB, I heard from Rob Camp that there was a creative writing club, so I started going over Zoom. Then once things transitioned back in-person, it lost a lot of students who had been attending online, because they either graduated or it was really hard for them to get on campus. So I took on an administrative role on campus, trying to get my foot in the door so that we could keep the club open long enough to strategize how to get more students in.
Eventually, we just had this miracle group that came in. They all signed up at one of the fall welcome days, and they have just taken the club and it’s just run off. They’re such a fun group. A lot of them are actually attending Chris Riseley’s science fiction class and his script-writing class this term.
I’m attending [the club] as a student now. I’ve already done my two years of club leadership, so I just help the current president out with emails and anything that comes up.
What are some of your plans for after LBCC?
After LBCC, I’m going to start applying to universities to try to get into a creative writing bachelor’s program or an English program, because there’s not a lot of creative writing programs in Oregon. I’m also hoping to keep in touch with all of the current creative writing students at LB. They have a Discord and we’ve had several students stay in it after graduation, so I’d love to keep in touch with them. But I think eventually I’m going to have to find a different writing group – instead of just encroaching on their space – as the current members slowly graduate and move on to different things.
What is one piece of advice you’d give to students who are considering creative writing?
I would really recommend just jumping into a writing class. Try things out. Even if you decide that writing isn’t for you, you’re going to learn a ton of things that are going to help you. LB has a wonderful writing program with small classes that allow you to get to know the other students and receive plenty of teacher feedback, but it might not fit you. Every writer is different, and it will take time to discover what is best for you.
I also urge you to “do it scared,” “do it stupid,” and most crucially, “do it.” One of the most important things you can learn in writing is to finish. Often, that means writing things you might feel are absurd until you can finally figure out the problem on the page and press into it.
