四虎影院

Author Amber Sparks encouraged students to draw inspiration from unexpected sources during her Feb. 21 craft talk on 鈥淔airy Tales as Inspiration.鈥�

鈥淎s a writer, you really want to get used to looking at everything as a way to pilfer and steal,鈥� Sparks said. She encouraged students to revisit the form and structure of fairy tales for inspiration for all kinds of writing鈥攂oth fiction and nonfiction.

Sparks, author of the upcoming novel 鈥淗appy People Don鈥檛 Live Here鈥� and four collections of short fiction, selected Emma Campbell as the winner of this year鈥檚 Jerome Irving Bank Memorial Short Story Prize. Junior Ella Peeples was the runner-up.

Campbell, a senior biology major with a minor in English, incorporated the natural world in her story 鈥淎nthology of the Animals,鈥� in which a narrator reflects on her interactions with animals while struggling to process grief over a death in her family.

Learn more about Campbell鈥檚 approach to writing below.

Senior biology major Emma Campbell's short story "Anthology of the Animals" earned her the 2024 Jerome Irving Bank Memorial Short Story Prize.

Author Amber Sparks, who selected the winner, delivered a craft talk on "Fairy Tales as Inspiration" at the Philadelphia Alumni Writers House.

Runner-up Ella Peeples, Amber Sparks, and winner Emma Campbell.

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What inspired you to write "Anthology of the Animals"?

The story follows a narrator who lives with her sister and her sister lost a baby after about a year. The narrator doesn鈥檛 know how to deal with the grief, and it doesn鈥檛 seem like she鈥檚 ever known how to deal with grief or discomfort. The story is about her learning how to figure out what she鈥檚 feeling and how to process it. She thinks about all these interactions with animals she鈥檚 had throughout her life and uses them as a medium to process what she鈥檚 feeling.

The idea came from a couple of different places. I don鈥檛 delete anything, so this started as scraps of old stories that I had, and then I had this idea of someone who was going through something and didn鈥檛 know how to talk to herself. The story kind of brought together a bunch of different things that I had written.

What does it look like when you sit down to write?

I鈥檝e found that I need to be surrounded by noise. I need moments to be able to stop and watch something happening and then go back to what I鈥檓 doing. I have these planning documents that are way longer than the story itself and I just keep at it until something clicks. And then I write the entire thing in a couple sittings.

Do you edit as you go or write messy first drafts?

For this story, there was a draft because I didn鈥檛 know where I was going with it, so I rewrote the whole thing from the point of view of a different character. But I usually comb through and edit as I go, and then a little bit at the end.

What are some favorite books or authors who have influenced you?

I read a lot of short stories. Some of Stephen King鈥檚 books changed the structure of my sentences. 鈥淭he Road鈥� by Cormac McCarthy changed my tone. There are two stories that I read in high school that made me want to write short stories. 鈥淭he Swimmer鈥� by John Cheever, and 鈥淗unters in the Snow鈥� by Tobias Wolff鈥攊t鈥檚 a very psychological, plot-twisty short story.

What made you want to pursue both biology and English?

I started studying biology because I was angry that no one would tell me exactly why things were happening. If someone said, 鈥楾he cell does this,鈥� it would frustrate me if they wouldn鈥檛 tell me why or how it happened. So I just kept studying it.

Biology is very poetic in a lot of ways. I think getting down to those details can be really beautiful and interesting. And I really do enjoy reading and writing about it. Also, I find that if I鈥檓 writing something, I have to be learning something at the same time.

What are your plans after graduation?

The dream is to write for a living, but I don鈥檛 know what form that鈥檚 going to take. I do enjoy writing in biology, so right now I鈥檓 looking at grant writing or scientific writing.