L: I have a double major - kind of - because technically you can’t be a double major. So, I’m majoring in creative writing and then fulfilling all of the qualifications to major in literature. I’m minoring in professional writing and digital rhetoric… Everything but teaching.
Q: So, what would you say some of your strengths are as a writer and an English student?
L. Ooh. In the creative writing aspect, I - when I’m writing, I think… well, I think I’m very creative. [laughs] I’d like to think that I can come up with a story. I think my strongest suit in stories is that I work well with big casts. Lots of characters. I pride myself in being able to keep track of them all. For literature? I do like analyzing literature. I should probably raise my hand in class a little more. I try to find indescrepencies that other people don’t find.
Q: What are your favorite genres and books, both in class and personally?
L: I mean - for my personal favorites, I love fantasy. You already know that - we talk about the Percy Jackson fandom all the time. I am into fantasy and superhero genres… Like Lord of the Rings, all that kind of stuff. For class, the books I really like - well, I’m in Renaissance [literature] right now, and I would never have just randomly picked up a Renaissance book. Utopia is the book we’re reading right now [by Thomas More]. It’s just a dialogue discussing different ideas and concepts - and I like some of those things, but it’s not something I would have seen on a shelf and picked up. That’s why I like taking literature classes, because they make me pick up books I didn’t know I’d like.
Q: Why are you an English major?
L: Well, I always liked English. [laughs] In second grade I tried to start a newspaper. I did! It didn’t last for long. I always liked to write. I want to be an author. I’m aware of how unrealistic that is… we’ll get there. Maybe when I’m fifty, but we’ll get there.
Q: What’s your favorite class that you have ever taken, at Bloomsburg or otherwise?
L: Oh, my favorite class? That’s so many. [laughs] I’d have to split it between any of the creative writing classes where I actually got to write and any of my classes with [Professor] Whitworth. I think that I always learn something that I didn’t expect to learn going into his courses for literature.
Q: You are part of The Voice, correct? You’re the webmaster.
L: I am. It sounds really fancy. [laughs]
Q: Are you part of any other organizations?
L: I am. I am the president of Kappa Kappa Psi. That’s the National Band Honors Service Fraternity. I am the instructor and captain of the Bloomsburg Color Guard, and I am in the Bloomsburg Concert Choir. I think that’s it? Oh, I’m in Sigma Tau Delta. That’s the English Honors Society.
Q: What do you like to write about, both in creative writing and informally?
L: Well, I like fantasy. I like coming up with entirely new worlds where very few things are the same as our worlds. I like to escape reality, so I make my own gods system, my own form of government, ect. World-building is great. I have maps of what they look like - very Tolkien of me. I know what all my places look like.
Q: What is the title of a book you’d like to write?
L: The book I’m writing - oh, it’s such a weird name. The book I’m writing is part of my Saving Anima series - it’s heavily based off an animal aspect - and it’s called The Quest for Yolo Rath because I think I’m really funny. The guy’s name is Yolo, although it’s not like that slang ‘you only live once,’ even if my friend thinks that should be his last words. I just thought it was really funny and now the name is just stuck for me. So that’s - yeah. The Anima series. The Quest for Yolo Rath is Book One.
Q: What would the title of a book about you be?
L: Oh, I thought about this! We had to (kind of) write memoirs in one class - I don’t remember which. I was thinking about combining all of the streets I ever lived on. So, I would say, because I moved from what was called the borough of West Chester to what was not the borough of West Chester, I would call it 205 (the number of the street I live on now) East Walnut Street. The Walnut comes from the original house I had lived in, and the East comes from my high school because that was another home to me. Then I would write Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania because I’ve lived here as well for four years. It would be a big mashup. If people didn’t get it, they’d be confused.
Q: Dream job?
L: Immediately, an author. A semi-hopefully successful writer. Honestly, I’m not measuring success in money, though. I’m measuring it in the amount of times I could go to a school - like, middle or high school - and they know my book and I can hopefully influence someone else to become a writer. I still remember when an author - the author of Racing in the Rain, about a dog and the narration of his life - came to my school. I remember him talking to our English classes and saying “Don’t give up!” I said, “I won’t, random person!” One day, I’d love to go do that.
Q: Since this might be seen by incoming freshmen or potential English majors, what advice do you have for them?
L: Stay in the major. There’s more jobs than you think there are. Don’t freak out if you don’t have a plan. Figure out who to talk to so you can get started on a plan, and if you’re trying to write for a living, start writing now and write consistently every day. Even if it’s for five minutes a day. Put it in your planner and say, “I’m going to write for five minutes,” otherwise it will never get done.
Lauren Bruce is a senior from West Chester, Pennsylvania. Thanks for the interview, Lauren!
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