Why did you choose your major and to pursue it at Iowa?

I’m from Iowa, so it was the smartest choice for me, and it just so happened to be the best school for what I’m interested in. I chose creative writing because I had an English teacher in high school, Karen Downing, who got her English degree at Iowa, and then she went to the nonfiction MFA program. She was a great teacher, and I really trusted her advice. She suggested English and creative writing, so I just decided to go for it, and it ended up being a really great choice.

When I started at Iowa, I thought I was a fiction writer. Then I took a poetry class with Dr. Donika Kelly, and I knew this is what I wanted to do. I was more interested in the language and the movement of the work rather than telling a story, which I think poetry does, but I don’t think it's always the goal.

Who was your most important mentor here, and what role did they play in your experience?

I have had the most incredible mentors ever. But one that really stands out is my poetry professor, Donika Kelly. She’s a wonderful person. She’s an incredible writer. She’s someone I look up to in every single way. And I’ve gotten to build a really incredible relationship with her. We both love whales and birds, which was our original connecting point. She’s been someone who has been really interested in my writing and was willing to tell me that, which was super cool to hear. And beyond that, Dr. Kelly, and all of the other faculty in the English program, have cared so much about me and my peers beyond our writing.

How have you found community during your time here? Who has been your support?

The writing community has been a very important part of my time here, and I feel very, very lucky with the friends that I have made. I met my best friend, Madeline, just walking around Tippie looking for a classroom, and now we do everything together. And that was just by chance, our little meet-cute.

Being involved with lit magazines was a way that I met some of my closest friends.

It’s awesome because now I’m friends with people who are poets, nonfiction writers, people who are interested in publishing. I have a friend who’s a PhD student. And I met some of them in classes, yes, but also by going to events and being in organizations with them.

What is something you’ve learned here that will be valuable throughout your life?

I think the greatest lesson I’ve learned is that writing is a place in which we can explore choices that we weren’t able to make, or didn’t want to make, or didn’t make in the moment. And that’s just been really wonderful for me as a person and poet.

Another thing I have learned — and this is one of the main focuses of the English department — is to build a writing practice that extends outside of school. One of the most valuable things I’ve learned is how to write and how to stay writing. I write an hour or two every day, and it's something that I prioritize, that guides and gives so much to my life and relationships to my friends and family and also to my larger relationship with the world, just being one animal alongside billions of others.

What’s the best way to describe what it’s like to be a Hawkeye, to be part of the University of Iowa community?

One of the things that I think is really wonderful about the university is how it gives space to art and artists. That’s one of the ways that I’m going to talk about it going forward, especially in writing spaces. I’ll talk about how strong the community is and how there are readings every day of the week and how you can walk anywhere and see a writer and meet a writer, and seeing all of this makes this life as a creative person and writer feel real and possible.