“Basically we want to know what you want to do with the MFA and what kinds of influences you have had and how we can be of help to you (and how you can be of help to the program in general.”

To whom it may concern:

I am applying for NAU’s MFA program for creative nonfiction starting in Fall 2019. I am graduating from the Evergreen State College with a Bachelors of Arts with an emphasis in creative writing. I focused my last two years on creative nonfiction, while receiving support from various genres.

The Evergreen State College helped shape me into an independent learner. There are no grades: instead faculty write a written evaluation of the students’ success, growth, and contribution to class. The student is then awarded credit based on the work they’ve done.  At Evergreen, I was introduced to the concept of seminar and interdisciplinary learning. Seminars taught me how important collaboration is to my learning style. We examined various novels, memoirs, short stories, and essays and discussed it through an interdisciplinary approach, allowing me to see things through others’ perspective and take away a more holistic view.

I enrolled in programs that focused on creative writing with at least one other academic component. These components have included philosophy, psychology, globalization, social justice, Russian literature, and composition and rhetoric. Looking at creative writing through multiple lenses has made my writing more dimensional and able to appeal to more audiences. I’m now an active reader who analyzes books from an interdisciplinary perspective: one who questions media and news reports, books, and my education from multiple points of view.

Since I started reading, I’ve had a passion for the written word. As a child, books were my main form of escape. I went to the library every Sunday with my mother and would pick out a book for each day of the week–a tradition I carried throughout high school. Characters became my best friends, and authors were their parents. I wanted them to like me; I wanted to be like them; I wanted to be them. Inspired by the words of creative nonfiction authors such as Lidia Yuknavitch, Augusten Burroughs, Melissa Broder, and Mary Karr, I decided to put pen to paper to find my voice. I transitioned from reader to writer, and back again. Authors became my teachers, and I wrote daily, wanting to make the authors that I fell in love with proud.

        I want to give that same feeling to a young kid in need of refuge. Someone that needs a little guidance, someone who can use my words to make a home. This led to me pouring my creative energy into writing about my upbringing while enrolled at Evergreen. Working closely with Sandy Yannone, the director of  Evergreen’s Writing Center where I tutored for two years, I began the process of writing a memoir, struggling through over twenty years of witnessing addictions, relationships, and money destroy a family. One of my biggest takeaways from this process is realizing that my words are important: I have the potential to tell a story that changes lives. My intention for graduate school is to focus on telling a story that alters my life, as well as influences others.
I’m interested in Northern Arizona University’s creative writing program because it focuses on creative nonfiction, is in a beautiful location that will transform writing, with award winning faculty who can challenge me to continue to write about my past, and for the teaching assistantship opportunities.

While at NAU, I plan on enrolling in the elective Readings in Creative Writing.

While in undergrad, I tutored on campus at the Writing Center for two years, and worked closely with a freshman only class, facilitating their writing workshops and helping students with assigned writing projects. Helping students with their writing every week, watching their syntax and prose transform over the months inspired me to try their techniques with my own writing, while slowly falling in love with teaching. Working with these students, as they struggled with tough passages, received feedback from me and their peers, and witnessing them end with a piece of writing they can be proud of, made me realize that I want to teach. Having the opportunity to work with students on their writing is life changing, and I want to give to students what they give to me: a challenge, hope, devotion, and a home. Becoming a teaching assistant would further support my pursuit of working with minds to mold a beautiful piece of writing, while inspiring continued work on my own writing.