Journeys Poetry Contest   Second-Place Winner  2006-2007

Alison Schofield is a 21-year-old FCCJ student, currently working on an A.A. in psychology and planning to complete a bachelor’s at UNF.  

Alison has studied creative writing at the high school and college levels, and her preferred method of sharing her work is through the internet.  She currently has some pieces posted on fanfiction.net, which she describes as “one of my favorite sites and my current reading and writing obsession,” and she is currently working on a murder mystery play using characters from the show Rurouni Kenshin. Readers are invited to view her work on fanfiction by looking for Aurio85.

In addition to combining her passion for writing with her interest in Anime, Alison has written some other plays and stories, including one children’s story, and she says she will continue to “create pieces just for the pleasure of writing something.”       

When asked about her winning poem, “A Crying Soul,” Alison attributes it to “a moment of depression when my emotions were on hyper-drive and I needed to release them into something  creative.”  She describes the piece as “a dark piece of poetry.”  Her initial writing process involves “letting my imagination take control from whatever emotion or story idea that's bothering me or floating in my head.”  After the emotions are recorded, she edits “until every word and verse sound like a flowing river moving with the current.”

Alison has some advice from her own experience to share with other aspiring writers. First, she warns against allowing the plot of a story or play to become “too silly or too unrealistic.”   Second, she suggests that those suffering from writer’s block “try out another creative hobby such as painting, crafts, drawing, etc. until you can write something that satisfies your taste.”  And finally, she encourages all young writers to “write for the sake of writing, or you will never see the improvement of work. When we write to just receive money or awards for our creations, you can lose the main reason and inspiration to why you write at all.”