Hannah Messinger: From Napkins to ‘NY Literary Magazine’

It all started at six years of age when Hannah Messinger had written her first book about a prince and princess. Her passion for writing blossomed in her tender youth just after discovering an immediate fascination with reading. “I used to make big forts with blankets and pillows to read books,” Messinger said. “When out at restaurants, I would write on the napkins and then I would ask my parents for certain words to write about on kids’ menus.”

Messinger’s fondness for writing and literature has only intensified exponentially throughout the years. In high school, she attended summer programs at Georgetown, Columbia and Brown University that all challenged her capabilities and gave her mentors for creative writing and poetry. “At Georgetown, they focused on introducing personal voice; I had no idea what I could do with it before,” Messinger said. “At Columbia, it was similar but more of a taste of everything: poetry section, screenwriting sections, short stories, dialogues. It was the first time literature was involved in one of these programs for me. At Brown, the program was more literature based. Columbia was definitely the best for me, I felt like I was a writer at that point and I knew what I wanted to do; it was more of a taste of what my life could be like and it solidified my love for poetry. My professor told me, ‘I had a voice that was worth hearing’ which gave me the validation that I needed. I knew I could pursue this professionally.”

As one of our very own staff members, Messinger has not only served as a content editor and a copy editor for Her Campus but also as its managing editor, which she is currently tackling. “I love this amazing and diverse community of writers we have here. It’s so cool how everyone really has their own tastes and styles but can put out content for a whole student body.”

This past summer, Messinger had a six-week-long online internship with New York Literary Magazine, in which she read and processed poetry submissions, assisted with editing and wrote articles and book reviews. She completed these tasks for on average of about four hours a day, scanning through hundreds of submissions. “I have submitted way too many different works of mine to different places all around, so I know how these people felt when they submitted their pieces to us,” Messinger said. “It was cool to be on the other side of it where I had the control and I got to scope out the gorgeous pieces; it is definitely an honor.”

Messinger is currently an assistant poetry editor for the Kudzu Review, a journal of literature and arts here at FSU. The journal is online this semester but will be in print in the springtime. “I’ll be able to read things that people from FSU are producing. I don’t regularly read a lot of creative writing coming out of Florida State, so I am very excited. I love seeing things that my peers come up with.” For those interested, Kudzu Review will be accepting submissions of both writing and visual art until Oct. 18 and can be accessed here.

“For the most part, I would say my theme [in my writing] has always been somewhat about love, but as I have grown in my writing, it has become more of a theme of interest with how humans interact with each other and the environment that they are in,” Messinger said. “I don’t want to limit it to love. You can read it as love poetry if that’s the position that you’re in, but I would hope that readers can alter the meaning so that it applies to other aspects of their lives as well. I’ve heard someone say that ‘your poems are a summation of all of your experiences and they are not just one experience.’ I think of my writing like that.”

When it comes to inspiration, Messinger seeks her ideas from life experiences just about anywhere. “One time a ladybug landed on me, and then another, and then another for every single day for a week, so I wrote about it. I let the universe talk to me,” she said. “I seek inspiration from amazing artists like Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, Colum McCann and Virginia Woolf.” Messinger’s ultimate goal in life is to be on Poetry Foundation, a prestigious archive of poems and other readings that date back to 1912. “Modern poets are always being added to it,” she said. “I want to be searchable, and maybe even be an editor for it.”

Messinger’s website can be accessed here and to see her work with her internship at New York Literary Magazine, click here.

• college
• english
• FSU
• literature
• poetry
• writing