My final autumn

It’s fall and as soon as I got back on campus, I got smart again. I haven’t written every day since my freshman year when the brick facades and foggy mornings sparked something in me that I had been aching for. It’s my last fall on campus, and I have been reading like a maniac, therefore I have been writing like a maniac too.

I guess when you are in all advanced classes and your professor says on the first day of class that you will have to write a book this semester, that’s just what you must do.  

I am currently reading seven books: 

• A History of my Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt – for advanced nonfiction 

• Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T. Kira Madden – for advanced nonfiction  

• The Best Short Stories 2023 edited by Lauren Groff – for forms of short story 

• The Last Catastrophe by Allegra Hyde – for forms of short story 

• In the Dreamhouse by Carmen Maria Machado – because my nonfiction professor said it was the only book he ever threw out 

• Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City by Jane Wong – for advanced nonfiction 

• Does Anyone Else Feel This Way by Eli Rallo – because I certainly feel this way 

I didn’t know who I was when I came to college, besides being a writer. I am so much more than that now, but I am an essayist. I also didn’t know who I was at ten years old, but I knew I was a writer. I have always known my truth and now I am here becoming that truth. Now I say I am a narrative poet and poetic essayist because I am a writer with two halves that cannot seem to untangle. 

I only write during my semesters or when travel, so I am petrified I am going to lose my writer’s touch. The accountability of workshop classes and consistency of literary arts around me keeps my head screwed on straight. I am graduating this year, and I never have to be in school again. What’s going to happen when there are no deadlines to write for, or, worse, to read for? The structure keeps me alive because reading is like inhaling words with the air I breathe, and writing them is the natural next step, an exhale. Breathe in. Breathe out. It’s the only way I have been able to stay sane.  

For this sake, and others, I have been considering graduate school. Emma Ritter, BA in Creative Writing, BA in Publishing & Editing, MFA in Creative Non-Fiction. I can picture it at the top of my resume, glittering on my blog homepage, and written on the about the author page of my debut book. That’s a beautiful title. It’ll keep me reading; it’ll keep me writing. It necessarily won’t get me published, but what published author doesn’t have an MFA? It’ll prove to myself that I am a writer. If I don’t keep writing, I will lose my art. 

I want to move to New York City. What writer doesn’t? It is the endless inspiration around you. A thousand bestsellers walk by you on the street. I can’t afford NYC, but a fully funded MFA program and a part time job might do the trick. Nothing is certain, but my dreams aren’t all that far away. I also want to move to Paris or Florence. I’m young, and I will be young for a long time still. Though, I am a senior in college and that also feels like the end of the world. 

This weekend was Homecoming. Homecoming as a senior in college means all of your role models and supports in your system are back. We stayed at the bar until last call and walked to Sonoco for gas station taquitos out of muscle memory for our past times. We ate breakfast for dinner with mimosas at 6pm under the buzzing neon pink light passed down from the very girls joining us at our table. There’s a piece of them in everything we do. I complained to them that every acquaintance that I ran into also coming back for the weekend asked first how I was and second if I had a job lined up. I replied first with “fantastic,” whether it was true or not because they frankly didn’t care and second with “I’m applying but it’s still a little too early.” I’m ready to land a job but the market isn’t. How is that my lack to fill? My friends, my mentors, reminded me they didn’t land jobs until after graduation. They all have jobs but still feel lost. These are the twenty-somethings. 

This morning I started reading Eli Rallo’s, Does Anyone Else Feel This Way? Yes, we do. I wonder if Eli dug into my own brain for this one or if I am just on the same wavelength as every other twenty-something creative trying to get it right. 

I am reading a lot of essays and memoirs right now because I am writing essays and memoirs right now. I am in a bubble of dissecting emotions that otherwise would have been pushed down for months to come. I force myself to peel open cuts before they are scarred over, and I relive the pain again. I am writing about the moments I don’t really want anyone to read, but that’s why it is crucial to end up on the page. Nonfiction writers do not get enough credit. 

Why do we think of postgrad as the end? Maybe, it’s the end of youth, but it is just the beginning of life. It is the time to finally take action on what we have been prepping for since four. I have been in school since four! That’ll be eighteen years by the end of this year.  

In fifth grade I knew I wanted to be a writer or maybe a marketer. Somehow, I am twenty-one and my goals have changed a million times, but I am graduating college, as a writer and a marketer. It’s funny how that worked out. Our youth is always within us and now I think I finally have the power to use that. 

I started this essay/blog post at the beginning of the semester and now I am finishing it on a random Monday morning as I am nearing the end. It’s the end of October and today I felt like I needed to let you all in on what’s been going on in my mind. 

Thank you for reading, 

Emma Claire Ritter