Hi there! Welcome to November 2024!
Here I am, eating Halloween candy, wrapped in my dogs-dressed-as-witches blanket and feeling Novembery as all get out, ready to update you on things since…whoa, October 2022?
When last we chatted, I was still in the midst of my creative writing and literary studies degree at UMass Amherst. I graduated with honors in May 2023, and met a delightfully gigantic snapping turtle in the UMass Amherst pond while strolling giddily around in my cap and gown. Education: achieved!
The largest and loudest thing to say today is that I’m now in my second year of the Pop Fic MFA program at Emerson College, and I am loving it. The official name of the program is Popular Fiction and Publishing. I will finish my penultimate class-taking semester next month, followed by my final class-taking semester, then a well-earned summer break. Finally, from September to December 2025 I will dive into and complete my thesis semester, which in my case means completing my first novel. I’ve been getting a lot of wonderful encouragement and feedback from my classmates on various excerpts, so I know I’m heading along the right path through the word forest.
(Don’t tell anyone, but I’ll most likely spend my well-earned summer break writing the novel too.)
And then, you may address me as Master of Fine Arts.
Excitement!
My next publication will be a short story in Page Turner Magazine, Emerson’s graduate student-run genre fiction magazine. I’m a PTM staff member, acting as both a reader of short fiction submissions and an art judge.
Other big, fun and profound changes are on the horizon, so stay keen! I anticipate a fun and surprising announcement in the coming days.
Oh! Almost forgot—my speculative poem Heart Like Switchgrass got an honorable mention in the 10th annual Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest back in the beginning of 2023. I’ll be submitting that someplace else soon. I’m going to start putting together a speculative poetry collection very soon, so that’s something fun to look forward to.
Okay! November update: achieved.
See you in December!
I remain,
your Jen Sexton-Riley
Halloween 2024 Has Flown the Coop!