Selected Undergraduate Work
Highlighted Coursework: Advanced Creative Nonfiction, Environmental and Science Journalism, Experimental Fiction Workshop, The Art of the Novel, Understanding Media Industries, Community Journalism, Independent Study in Fiction
"I progressively began collecting postcards anywhere I could find them. Every bar we began to frequent, every boutique we stopped into on the way to class, and every museum gift shop I sprinted into minutes before they closed gained an added layer of choice and meaning. As I walked through the harrowed halls of the monumentally large Rijksmuseum, I eagerly anticipated the search for my favorite paintings’ replicated and commodified younger siblings. And when the pieces I liked best were not included in the thorough array of the gift shop’s options, my preferences speedily shifted to align with whatever was provided. Every experience was codified by the images available for selection in representing it."
"Within the winding bowels of Crystal City’s business-professional weirdness is an essentially foolproof oasis for even the sloppiest of serial killers. The Virginia neighborhood’s disorienting indoor tunnels snake from the metro stop to hoards of office buildings—guiding commuters through a seemingly endless maze of sterile white walls and mostly empty workspaces. The hallways are designed to mimic cobblestone streets, with circular and diamond patterns of muted maroon tiles across a windowless, disorienting imitation of a subverted Renaissance-era market."
"On the corner of State Street and North University Avenue—right outside that Walgreens door that really looks like it’s supposed to open the other way—is a small Ann Arbor Historical Marker titled “A Book Lover’s Town.” Often covered in the dirt and dust of State Street’s bustling mess, the plaque is remarkably easy to walk past without a second thought. It tells the age-old tale of Ann Arbor’s everchanging bookstore landscape: threads of buyouts and bankruptcies and growing e-commerce domination told in the warm disposition of a city obsessed with its own literary merit."
"It struck me that, despite our emotional closeness, my grandparents and I live in two vastly different worlds. While I would soon return to watching my classmates use ChatGPT mid-lecture, my grandparents would remain on Corporate Drive, completely unaware of the technological transformation happening right under their generational nose. They have endured the birth of the Internet and the frenzied popularity of the iPhone and yet completely missed this critical nexus in the next looming era of communication. The overwhelming plethora of think pieces and research articles seem to operate at a speed beyond their cinnamon-scented, quilt-filled home where my grandparents remain in their quaint lane of what they already know to be true. "
