The Fairfield Personal Statement

So here is my first revision of the Fairfield Personal statement. I'm probably going to strip it down and re-do it again, but this is where I'm starting. Since I'm applying for nonfiction, I felt it was appropriate to begin the essay with a piece of nonfiction writing. So here it is...this is one of the final posts seeing as I'll be presenting this blog in a couple weeks for my capping project. I'm sure I'll be back once the application is sent in! It's crazy to think all I have left to take care of are my letters of recommendation.

Some words of advice: Start early and just keep plugging along.  And if you're passionate about what you're doing, it doesn't feel like work. I really do love to write. Any time that I'm sitting at my desk, writing, I feel like everything is right with the world. It helps bring me down on those wicked angry days and it helps me sift through confusing thoughts. It helps me remember moments I never want to forget. It's taken me on a wild journey from first grade to now...and I hope I have further to go.

I remember the day like it was yesterday. I had on my ratty pink overalls, dragging behind the heels of my already dirty blue Keds. The back yard was thick with mud and the smell of spring flowers and fresh breezes. My grandparent’s back door loomed closer and I stumbled across the loose stone driveway to show them my latest project, the pages clutched tightly in my ten-year-old hands. I spent the majority of my time running back and forth between our houses. My Grandpa would proudly tell all his friends, when I graduated high school with a running scholarship in hand, that I had always been a runner. But I was something else, too. Grandpa made the biggest show of taking the paper to read. He neatly placed his glasses closer to the bridge of his nose, looking down intently, taking great care with each page turn.

            He never said anything. Just smiled and tucked the thin amateur newspaper into his book shelves. I found one of these newspapers just a few weeks ago when I went down to visit Grandma. I was shocked she had kept it. Looking back through it, I remembered typing it up, how long it had taken me, how those hours had seemed to fly by. It reminded me why I still write, why I want to continue writing.

            Miss Torrence, our first grade teacher at St. John the Evangelist Grammar School, handed out blank notebooks in the first week of class. We were to keep journals for the entire year. She checked our spelling and encouraged us to draw pictures to accompany each entry. I had always created my own imaginative worlds as a child. There was a stable in my backyard and a crazy riding instructor. My best friend and I created grand adventures where we traversed a world much bigger than my back yard. I always wanted to create through my writing. I want to entertain people and allow them the same escape and enjoyment that my collection of books has gifted to me. But I had a twist on this, in the sense that I wanted to use my own memories and real-life experiences to entertain.  From that first journal, there have been over ten others, my current one sitting on my desk waiting to be written in for the day. I am always writing.

             I stumbled into Marist’s Journalism program as a second semester freshman, still unsure of what I really wanted to do. I was encouraged to join the creative writing minor, which would also fulfill my cognate. I realized that what I did every day without a second thought - write - was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I had found a place where I was comfortable and wanted to continue to grow. It was like a comfortable, worn-in pair of running shoes, laced up and ready for a ten mile jaunt.

            Marist trains the creative students in a special way. Every workshop allows both professional criticism and peer criticism. I studied the craft of journalism, non-fiction, poetry, fiction, playwriting, screenwriting, ekphrastic poetry, grammar, and speeches. We wrote and revised, wrote and revised. We read samples in each craft to point us on the right track. Non-fiction struck the strongest chord in me. It drew me in right from the start. The brutal honesty that it takes, but still maintaining a subtlety is something I hope to hone even further. However, my experience in all these fields combined has allowed me to blend them into my personal writing style and create a unique way of composing my pieces. Marist allowed me to discover new styles and then encouraged me to continually use them in the rest of my classes.

            I write when I’m seething with rage, bouncing with joy, or sobbing in trepidation. It’s always been an escape, but it’s also been everything I’ve wanted to do. I know that I will always write, hopefully one day publishing a piece of work. But I also want to teach students in a way that they come to appreciate and enjoy the subtle complexities of writing the way my teachers taught me. I never considered teaching until I began my writing classes at Marist. But after several of them, I wanted to be able to share what I was learning with future students.

            I hope you consider me for your program as I see it as a way for me to continue on my writing journey and gain more of an appreciation for the great writing community around me. Not only will it expand and diversify my skills and reading exposure, it will take me further in discovering my own writing journey to one day share with others, hopefully through teaching. Thank you for your consideration.