Students pen the great novel

For most, the end of college signals the start of their careers. But by that point some student writers’ careers have already begun.

Although still in the minority, a few of Penn’s budding authors have already been published.

College senior Josh Bennett, for example, recently published Jesus Riding Shotgun, a collection of autobiographical poems.

A number of his poems are about his family, but life at Penn has become a prominent subject as well. One is about his relationship with a West Philadelphia middle-school student he mentors.

Bennett has been working on the collection since his freshman year, and finished it only a few months ago.

But becoming a published author is not his only goal.

“I want to do advocacy work, and use the arts as a tool for social change,” he explained.

To this end, he has set up a program called Beautiful Art Rupture Silence, or BARS, through which he and a few fellow students go to prisons and hold creative writing workshops.

Talking about being both a writer and a student at the same time, Bennett laughed.

“I literally don’t know what free time is,” he said, adding that he always “feels like there is something greater to be done.”

Bennett added that he is looking to the future.

“Jesus Riding Shotgun is a marker of what I was from the ages of 17 to 21,” he said. “I am now excited for the next chapter of my life.”

But for some of his peers, getting published has not been as easy.

Zach Sergi, a College senior, wrote a “thinly veiled fiction” novel about growing up in Manhattan during his senior year of high school. According to him, the book is meant to be “literary Gossip Girl — more like Gossip Girl meets Bret Easton Ellis.”

After some debate about whether to target young adults or adults with the book, potential publishers told him it would fit into the former category. However, the book was ultimately deemed too edgy for young adults, and Sergi was told to change it.

Sergi rewrote a “subtler” version of the book this summer, he said. His agent is currently looking for a publisher for the first book, while Sergi works on one about gay life at Penn.

He expressed plans to go into screenwriting, and said he intends to move to Los Angeles when he graduates.

College junior Valeria Tsygankova has also published her original literature.

Three poems have been published in online journals, while a fourth was published in Philadelphia Stories.

Tsygankova said she wanted to work with newer publishers who are looking to support both new and established writers.

“One of [the Kelly Writers House’s] goals is to introduce students to the realities of publication,” said KWH faculty director Al Filreis. He advised that students not disregard newer online media because it will be as important as print media in a few years.

But he added that it should be no surprise “that savvy and ambitious young writers have the audacity to try to get published,” adding that “young people are now writing better than ever before.”

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.