“When I was in third grade, I made the horrific decision that I wanted to be a writer one day,” says Annalise Errico ‘21, who majored in Creative Writing and double minored in Literature and in Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies (now reimagined as Gender, Race, and Sexuality Studies).
All jokes aside, Annalise still loves writing and wouldn’t change her career path for the world. Her eight-year-old self, though, had no idea how difficult an industry she had set her sights on.
“A very depressing statistic is that only 1 percent of books that get written get published, which is unbelievable when you think about how many books get published in a year,” says Annalise. “That’s a lot of people’s dreams that are not being fulfilled.”
Although statistics such as this one can be discouraging, Annalise has not given up on her dream of having her own book published one day.
Even before coming into college, Annalise knew she wanted to study creative writing. She gravitated toward Lesley when she learned that Creative Writing was an undergraduate major rather than just a concentration, something that was not the case at many other schools she looked at.
After enrolling at Lesley, Annalise soon realized she was interested in all of the literature classes, so it made sense to choose literature as her minor. In these courses, she did a lot of research into feminist and queer theory, which prompted her to add women’s, gender, & sexuality studies as another minor.
“I have always been really interested in feminism as a lens through which to look at literature,” says Annalise. “Also, we’re at a point where gender is being questioned in a lot of ways, so it’s exciting to be able to converse about these topics.”