I was born on October 14, 1997, despite not having been consulted beforehand on whether that was a good idea. I grew up in Newburyport, Massachusetts, only child to immigrants from Montenegro of former Yugoslavia. I didn’t cry much as a baby.
In preschool, my teacher asked my parents if they read to me, or played any creative games with me at home. My parents replied that everything I did at home was creatively oriented, and that they were confused about why my teacher would assume otherwise. She told them that I only did math-related activities at school, and implored that my parents find out why. When they asked me why I only did math at school, I apparently said “when I do math, the other kids leave me alone and I don’t have to speak English.”
At USC I studied English. Sort of. I wanted to be a film student, but let insecurity get the best of me and applied as psychology instead. I switched to philosophy before my first day of class. As I finished my first year, I realized that the upper levels of academic philosophy were just old men from Princeton arguing with old men from Yale about the semantics of a single word and ignoring the intended argument at large, so I switched to English with the creative writing emphasis.
After realizing how much more 18th century literature I’d have to study and feeling like I’d had enough of it from high school, I switched to Narrative Studies. I don’t really know what Narrative Studies is, so I’ve described it as ‘English for indecisive English majors’ which usually gets a chuckle. I’m also in the Literary Editing and Publishing progressive degree program which I started in the fall, meaning I’d graduate in spring 2021 with my M.A.
What else do I say? I speak Montenegrin, English, French, and Portuguese, I’m a writer who doesn’t write enough, I’m an editor who doesn’t read enough, and I’m just happy to be here nonetheless. I’m an avid kickboxer who is terrified of moths. My ambition is to never again wear closed-toe shoes.
