Junior Major to Have Essay Published in Collection

There are many aspects to being a writer, and junior English major Natasha Fowler is experienced enough to relate to most of them first-hand.

Natasha last summer in Israel

Writing begins with getting one’s ideas down on paper. Then there’s the need to show your work to others and get valuable feedback for revision,  a process that can be helped along by taking a creative writing workshop.

A veteran of Creative Nonfiction Workshop and Poetry Workshop, Natasha knows all of the above and also the third thing. There comes a time when you have to have the courage to submit your work, even if it means facing rejection.

But Natasha wasn’t rejected.

Her essay, which she wrote last fall in response to a flier asking for submissions, has just been accepted for publication in the latest installment of Student to Student. This paperback volume collects short devotional essays (350-450 words) from Christian college students around the country. Many of the essays deal with common experiences college students face as they try to live a godly life. According to the editors, the series is designed to encourage students “by offering them practical advice, spiritual insight and a sense that many students face similar struggles.”

Natasha describes her contribution as follows:

“It’s about a friendship that has been one of the biggest challenges and blessings in my life during my college experience. My desire for what I wrote is for other students to see each other with eyes wide open to all possibilities of what God has in store for even the hardest friendship!”

Student to Student is a project of Professors Paul Buchanan and Paula Miller at Biola University. The first Student to Student volume was published in 2008 and featured 60 student essayists.

Prof. Al Haley knows of at least one other ACU student whom he worked with who has appeared in the previous incarnation of this publication.

“There’s a lesson to be learned here,” Professor Haley says. “It’s that if you devote time to your writing, make use of the resources on campus, including your professors, to polish your words, then send your manuscript out, you have a real chance of getting published.”

And what’s the next step? Natasha, who is getting married this May, sees her future this way:

“I love writing short stories and novels and so will continue stubbornly trying to get them published. I also hope to work for a publishing company, preferably linked to a ministry of some kind like the International House of Prayer in Kansas City or Morning Star Ministries in North Carolina.

She concludes, “My future husband, Phil Dosa, and I both have a passion for the church, missions and Israel and look forward to seeing where the Lord takes us in that direction.”