Jessica Sanfilippo isn’t even a semester into college and she’s already kicked off her writing career. The Scholastic Regional-at-Large Poetry Gold Key Winner has fiction published in Kerouac’s Dog Magazine and on the New Slang Literary Magazine website. Her prose writing was featured in the All City World Arts & Cultures Showcase and her sonnet, “Passing Through Today,” was published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Jessica is just getting started as an English/Creative Writing major at Chatham, but she has been training in her craft for years. “I went to a creative and performing arts middle and high school for literary arts,” she says. “I have been writing creatively since I was in elementary school but had the opportunity to solely focus on it starting in sixth grade.” As a child, Jessica hoped to dance or paint professionally before her priorities shifted toward literature. “In high school, my class allotted about 3 hours of focused writing,” she recalls. “A lot of this time was used for lecturing and discussions, but my class and I worked hard to use this time wisely.” Reflecting on her experience at CAPA, Pittsburgh’s Creative and Performing Arts magnet, Jessica picked out one particularly memorable moment: “One of the coolest experiences was writing a poem with Stacey Waite, a famous poet and professor at Pitt. She came to do a workshop, we ended up partnering together, and then at her poetry reading, I got up on stage and read it. Fascinating.”
Even after seven years of intensive study, Jessica’s dedication hasn’t subsided. “I love writing. I try to write everyday and keeping this as my focus in college helps me. I help myself when I write and I want to show people what I can do.” Though Jessica says that anger is a fantastic motivator, little things spark inspiration for her. “A woman and her child might walk past or I might mistake a stranger for an old friend and those moments remind me that writing is important.” And when the enthusiasm just isn’t there? “I step away for hours at a time,” she says. “If I’m too frustrated, nothing will come.”
Her passions extend beyond literature. Asked about her interests, Jessica replies: “Feminism. Supporting women. Understanding that women are essentially in the same, confining place that they were 60 years ago.” For Jessica, feminism and writing are not confined to separate realms. “For my high school graduation project, I focused on discrimination in the workplace. I wrote feminist rant-like poetry. My interests infinitely reflect my writing style.”
Jessica sees poetry as an integral part of society: “Poetry will always be the first literary form taught, people will always come back to it, nursery rhymes are poems, wedding vows are poems, our society sticks to poetry because it is short and straightforward.” The genre holds a place of importance in her own work. “I take long pieces I write and try to fit them in a poetic mold; if I can say something in 1,000 words, I want to try to make it into 10 lines. It’s possible.” Even with her proclivity for stanzas, Jessica firmly supports long-form writing in an era of shortening attention spans. “It should have a place,” she says. “Men and women write novels everyday and make excessive amounts of money. People will always want to ‘get lost in a good book.’”
As Jessica furthers her eloquent professional life, she’s thrilled to be a Chatham woman. How did she make the decision? “I just knew,” she replies. “I’ve never had a moment like that before. Where you walk into a new place and just know. I applied to very few colleges and this was my only acceptance where I cried.”
Jessica will add another publication to her resume when her prose poetry appears in Smashed Cat Magazine’s December 6th, 2011 issue.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Chatham chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.