By Alyssa Jackson
The University of Lynchburg provides a wide range of opportunities for students, including a variety of different majors and minors, like creative writing.
Creative writing professor Kelly Jacobson has published several books, including “Tink and Wendy”, “Robin and Her Misfits” and other published pieces like poetry books.
Jacobson also has a contest-winning chapbook called An Inventory of Abandoned Things, published in April 2021. The book contains stories of how humans and landscapes can have connections with a mysterious unknowability for readers.
For students with dreams of becoming published authors, having an instructor who is living that dream encourages students of what is possible for their future.
Sophomore Mena Sutphin says, “When I first found out Kelly was an author in my intro to creative writing class last semester, I was honestly really wowed and impressed. Because in all truthfulness I was not expecting a professor at my small college campus to be a published author. Let alone a published author in young adult fiction.”
The creative writing minor contains classes like children’s literature and nature writing, which provide students with more than a credit, but a class they can enjoy.
Jacobson says, “It’s just fun, and like a lot of people are doing majors that are very intense and very difficult like science, and bio, and pre med. And so it’s like having fun classes that are just really creative like an outlet is just good for you to have.”
Sutphin says, “Speaking from experience as someone that has taken her classes, it is extremely beneficial that she is a published author because she can take from her first hand experience as a published author and bring it into class, and explain why it’s relevant. And also, explain the publishing process, the planning process, all of it and it’s really amazing, and fascinating to get to hear this from someone that’s really credible because they are published.”
You can find more information on Jacobson’s published pieces here and information about the Creative Writing Minor here
