Life Update! 2.18.19

Life Update 2.19.19: A Question and Answer Session with Myself

Good afternoon! I thought this might be a fun way to catch you all up on what I've been up to, as well as an interesting writing exercise. I am receiving a lot of the same questions, so I thought it would be best to address them all in one convenient blog post!

• The infamous college questions:

• Q: Do you plan to go to college? Where are you in the process?
• A: I plan to go to college right away in the fall following my high school graduation in June. I was admitted to six or so colleges and I have narrowed it down to two. I plan on confirming my enrollment sometime in March.
• Q: What would you like to study, in a perfect world?
• A: Ideally, I would like to pursue a bachelor's degree in English with a focus on Creative Writing (poetry specifically). I would like to either double-major or minor in Spanish or Education. I would like to become fully fluent in Spanish and be able travel to Spanish-speaking countries.
• Q: Ok, so sounds like you've got a plan...
• A: After observing spoken word artists here in the Twin Cities, I've come to really admire teaching artists. I would love to be able to continue to pursue my love for writing while also spreading that love to others within my community, thus my interest in pursuing an education degree.

• More about my writing/its current state:
• Q: Anything exciting happening with your writing career?
• I am very excited to announce that I was awarded two honorable mentions, a silver key, and a gold key in this year's Scholastic Art and Writing Awards!
• In addition to the Scholastic Awards, I am currently in my first spoken word competition through TruArtSpeaks in the Twin Cities. I will be competing in the semifinal bout sometime in March.
• Q: What kinds of projects are you working on right now?
• As I have four months left until I graduate, I'll admit it is difficult to stay grounded during this time. I am struggling to decide what to focus on for the remainder of the school year.
• I've started to work on a manuscript for my own chapbook, or collection of poems, to be pitched for publishing! The publishing process is very new to me, though learning how to navigate it will surely be a learning experience.
• Q: What kind of writing are you most interested in currently?
• For the past month or so, I have become very interested in cut-and-paste type poetry styles. I enjoy cutting out words or phrases from pieces of ordinary text and putting it together to create something new, sort of like a franken-poem. Over the course of this school year, I have become more drawn (haha!) to visual art and enjoy finding ways to include it with my poetry. My watercolor paintings often serve as the background to many of my newer franken-poems. 
• I'm sure there's a more official term, but I enjoy "franken-poems."

Finally, I am also working on assembling a handful of pieces to be read at the upcoming March 13th Literary Arts reading through my school. More details and a better name for it should be coming soon, but here's the gist:

3.13.19

7:30pm

The Loft Literary Center

Hope you all are doing well!

Charlie

They/Them/Theirs