Content Warning: This story contains mentions of eating disorders.
A walk outdoors during the COVID-19 pandemic. No music. No one else.
This moment is when Weinberg freshman Sol Rivera got the idea for her first book: “Restrict: A Poetic Narrative.” As soon as inspiration struck, Rivera turned around, ran home and began to write.
From “Game of Thrones” author George R. R. Martin (Medill ’70, ’71) to “Divergent” author Veronica Roth (Weinberg ’10), Northwestern has produced many successful writers.
Student authors like Rivera continue that tradition.
Drawing inspiration from her own life, Rivera wrote and published “Restrict: A Poetic Narrative” with Hatherleigh Press, a partner of Penguin Random House, while still in high school.
The poetry collection follows an unnamed female character from the age 7 to 17, chronicling her struggles with disordered eating and self-love.
“I shared it with my mom, and she said, ‘Oh my God, you have to get this published,’” Rivera said. “We started querying agents together, and it’s all just really a whirlwind process that I never really expected to set on.”
From readers to writers
While “Restrict: A Poetic Narrative” is Rivera’s first novel, she started writing at age 13 after completing a poetry assignment for an English class.
Like Rivera, Weinberg freshman Haley Kleinman also began writing at a young age. Kleinman started her self-published novel “A World of Shadows” during middle school after receiving encouragement from one of her English teachers.
She said the book was inspired by dystopian series such as “The Hunger Games,” “Shatter Me” and “Divergent.” But she also said she noticed these books had no Latina protagonists.
“I wanted to see a main character who kind of looked like me and had similar experiences,” Kleinman said.
Medill sophomore Ava Paulsen said she also took inspiration from dystopian novels to create her novel, currently titled “Ahimsa,” which is in the works.
In addition to fiction, Paulsen said writing helped her work through her emotions surrounding difficult events, such as the 2016 presidential election.
“I felt inspired to kind of use creative writing as a way to process what was going on in the world and make sense of it,” Paulsen said.
The writing scene on campus
NU’s creative writing program offers a major and minor with sequences in fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction.
Rivera, Kleinman and Paulsen have all declared either a creative writing major or minor. However, not all student authors partake in the program.
Weinberg junior Mia Perkins, who is studying economics and international studies, self-published her novel “Our Domestic Deaths” despite not joining NU’s creative writing department.
Perkins said she values writing not for a class or publication, but for pleasure.
“There’s this idea at Northwestern that creativity, it’s become quite sinister,” Perkins said. “There has to be an ulterior objective, like a reward that you can get for the end of it.”
Perkins is also working on a second book, this time planning to distribute it through a traditional publishing house.
Some students adopt creative writing as an extracurricular activity.
Kleinman has served as a staff writer and section editor for North by Northwestern magazine’s creative writing section. Paulsen has also published work in Helicon, NU’s literary arts magazine.
Beyond student publications, Paulsen said she wishes for stronger connections with alumni in the publishing industry.
“I would love to have a more connected network in the field of publishing and with authors,” Paulsen said. “I think it would be a really great aspirational thing for Northwestern to do.”
The next chapter
As these authors move forward, each plans to continue writing and publishing new work.
Rivera, whose family is Jewish and Russian, is once again taking inspiration from her own life. She is writing a historical fiction novel about the life of a Jewish jester in the court of Russian czar Peter the Great.
“I thought, ‘Why not write a story about this?’ because this (jester) is a real person who, even though we don’t know much about his life, must have gone through some incredible challenges and faced some incredible antisemitism and persecution and ire from the court,” Rivera said.
Kleinman said she plans to write a second novel, switching from sci-fi dystopian to a coming-of-age story.
“Just write. Write wherever, write whatever the ideas come to you,” Rivera said. “Write when you don’t have any ideas. That’s the only way to keep on going.
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