ORIGINS

In this section, I explore the way in which my fascination with my identity as a person and writer was manifest in my writing form early on. By incorporating the strongest work from my senior year in high school, I showcase the way I began to explore the themes of identity that serve as the backbone to this portfolio.

Belonging

BELONGING

This work, which I wrote for a creative writing class, explores the way being a gay writer in a small town of less than 3,000 and one stoplight shaped my identity and sense of belonging. It is important to me as a storyteller because it was the first time I dove deep into the way my surroundings shaped me as a person.

A C Cup

A C CUP

This is another piece I wrote my senior year of high school. It fits into this portfolio because it was the first piece that I wrote that explored my fascination with socially constructed forms of identity. From junior year, I was really interested in the way our identities are socially constructed, and this piece voices my specific interests in the constructions of gender, sexuality, and class.

The Writer

THE WRITER

This text was the first time in which I thought about the way a writer's identity is connected to his or her characters. The work within this piece of dramatic writing reflects my ideas on the interplay between the writer and their characters. It also explores the different facets of my own identity at that time that manifested themselves in the characters within the script. It was also a very important work to me because it was the first piece of mine to garner critical acclaim, receiving a National Gold Medal through the Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards.