Photo by: Steve Cohn www.stevecohnphotography.com (310) 277-2054 © 2023
Major: English (Creative Writing); Communication
2023 Jimmy Award Recipient
Studying English (creative writing) at USC was transformative. My professors tore down the walls I built up against a career in academia, encouraging me with positive feedback to continue exploring my interests and pour myself into my writing as much as I could. The dreaded expectation of the esoteric literary canon was swiftly replaced with a fresh excitement for expansive study.
As a Polish native who now lives in Los Angeles, the literary world has been a bridge from Europe to California. I had the opportunity to translate the Polish poetry of Ewa Lipska into English in one of my classes—and have since expanded into translating Wisława Szymborska and other polish writers. I tend to gravitate towards stories set in Poland in my creative work, exploring the historical tensions over the last thousand years.
As an undergraduate student at USC, I joined and grew the Literary Society, the university’s premier literary club. As the VP of Communications and Operations for over three years, I ensured the club’s legacy, built a community of readers and writers and met my best friends/beta readers/ copy editors along the way. I also spearheaded marketing efforts, facilitated our professional speaker series and led fiction workshops, which have given me invaluable experience providing constructive feedback to other writers.
USC has given me the confidence to pursue a PhD in literature and creative writing. I hope to grow as a fiction writer and publish a novel by the end of my studies, as well as develop the necessary skills to teach writing at a university level.
