This interview was taken by Bailey Tulloch and appears in the 2016 Edition of R2.​



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Sara Shepard is the author of the hit young-adult-series-turned-television phenomena Pretty Little Liars and The Lying Game. Shepard graduated from Brooklyn College with an MFA in Creative Writing. She is also the author of the young adult series The Heiresses and The Perfectionists, and the adult novels The Visibles and Everything We Ever Wanted. Shepard currently lives in Pennsylvania with her family. 

What has it been like watching your work move from page to screen, and, in a way, handing your characters over to other writers? Has there been anything in particular about the Pretty Little Liars television series that surprised you?
I had written seven books of the Pretty Little Liars series before ABC Family developed the pilot. At the time, I thought I had one more book to go. I had rounded out the characters and the world, and I knew them pretty well. When Marlene King and her writers wrote the series, they had a lot of material to draw from—and it shows. The TV characters closely resemble the book characters. The premise is the same, and so is the world. Sure, they’ve taken some creative liberties, but you have to for TV. I wasn’t very sensitive about handing over my characters to TV’s writers—I was thrilled! You can’t look a gift horse in the mouth—how could I have ever predicted I’d get a series on TV period? The show has brought so many new readers to my books and, for an author, that’s an opportunity of a lifetime. As for the second part of the question, I’m sure I’ve been surprised about certain elements of the show—like who A is!—but I’ve enjoyed the twists and turns the series has taken. And nowadays, I watch the show like a regular old viewer, excited for what’s coming next.

A lot of Rice students often tend to let their creative writing fall to the wayside amidst the craziness of college life. Were you able to find time to write creatively while in college, and how did you balance it among academics/ social life/etc.?
Even before college, I kept journals—I had this fear of losing important memories and felt the need to write everything down. (And remember, this was before camera phones, Instagram, etc., when I could have just taken a picture to document so much.) Often, I wrote what happened to me or what I was worried about like little pieces of short fiction, and this continued into college. I took some creative writing classes as well, but for the most part it was just in journals—though, unfortunately, I’ve lost quite a few of them, either to computer crashes or leaving them in bars. Websites and blogs were becoming popular when I was in college, too, and my sister and I made this fictitious online newspaper based on a strange, square-headed world we invented as kids, so I guess that was creative, too, although most of the stories talked about uprising pelicans, counterfeit doctors, and doppelgängers. My sister and I were odd kids for sure.

Many Rice students are really passionate about writing and would love to pursue a career in that field but tend to feel pressure to stick with paths that are more “financially predictable.” What advice do you have for these students, and what influenced your decision to get an MFA in Creative Writing?
To be honest, I got an MFA in Creative Writing post-9/11—I had a sort of “life is short” epiphany, and I’d always wanted to get an MFA, so I decided to go for it. I had no preconceived notions of ever building a career with my MFA, unless you counted teaching. During that time, though, I started ghostwriting for Alloy Entertainment, which got my foot in the publishing door. After that, I guess I was just dogged. I badgered my contacts for work. I worked quickly. I worked around the clock. I think that’s what people forget about being a writer—you do work a lot. Sure, there are times when I have weeks off, between deadlines, but for the most part, I’m always thinking about what I’m working on, even when I’m not at the computer. And the thing about making writing your career these days is that, at least in my opinion, there are a lot more options now than there were before. Yes, there’s traditional publishing, or working for a newspaper or a magazine, but there’s also self-publishing, which is making a lot of strides in the market, and there are so many new online venues to tap into—and so many of them are respectable. I also know a lot of people who support themselves by blogging—something unheard of not so long ago! It seems that if you’re creative, and if you have an interesting idea, and if you persevere, you can at least get your work out there. If you want to go the traditional route and get, say, a novel published, agents are so much more accessible these days, either through online contacts or through writing conventions, like SCBWI, which are popping up everywhere. At writing conventions, you can meet with an agent of your choice, pitch your idea, and get honest, constructive feedback—and sometimes the agent will ask to read more. I had no clue of such means of getting my work reviewed back when I was starting out.

Most of the protagonists in your books are young females. How do these age and gender preferences interact for you? Why are they interesting to you?
I feel like adolescence and young adulthood are such fertile, tumultuous times—everything is new, your emotions are swirling, you don’t quite know how to handle yourself. Plus, people don’t treat you as an adult yet, no matter how hard you try, so you’re in this curious limbo of worlds where you want to be taken seriously and you don’t even realize that’s probably not going to happen for a few more years. At least that’s the way it was with me. I enjoy writing about women because it’s interesting to share the female experience, and I try to create strong, interesting, non-stereotypical female characters. However, in the new series I’m writing, The Amateurs, there are a couple of male protagonists in the mix, and it was fun trying to tap into the male perspective. What have you found is the biggest difference between writing for an adult audience and writing for a young adult audience? I used to feel that with adult you could be a little more experimental, though I think YA fiction has come a tremendously long way since I started out. With adult, your plot can move a little slower, and you can develop your characters a bit more, and obviously your subject matter is different. But again, these were lessons more when I was staring out ten years ago—nowadays, I feel like the lines between YA and adult have blurred. And a good story is a good story—you always have to keep that in mind. I do as much intense plotting for my adult novels as I do for my YA ones. And these days, I make no assumptions about my audience—all my readers are smart, and all of them want a good, engaging book, no matter their age.

Yesterday was R2's annual Open Mic Night event, held in Rice's own Willy's Pub. We had an awesome turnout of both performers and spectators, so thank you to everyone who dropped in! Below you'll find some of the pictures from the night.

Open Mic Nights are one of many much-needed venues for the sharing of ideas and expressions. Whether it's through a favorite poem, a meaningful song, a few minutes of comedy, or a crazy beat, we can learn from each other and give each other a little bit more freedom and support at the same time. Personally, I got a lot out of watching each person give their performance. It can be vulnerable, when you stand on stage reading a piece you spent weeks perfecting. It can be terrifying to step on stage and spend a few minutes trying to entertain a crowd you aren't entirely sure wants to listen to you. But when you finally do, something magical happens: everyone in the audience cares, at least for a moment, at least about a bit of what it is you're doing. And maybe when you get up there and start speaking, it can inspire someone in the audience, who wasn't feeling brave at first, to jump up and give it a go.

So thanks to Open Mic Nights, for provoking the courage and creativity in us, and for bringing us together for a few hours in delicious cheese dip, laughter, and self-expression.

Photographs and blog post by Erika S. ('19)

When moving across the country this summer from Seattle, WA, to Houston, TX, I had to pack up my entire life into a few boxes. Clothes were easy; I was able to leave the parkas and wooly hats at home. Books on the other hand, I saved until last, unable to execute the inevitable downsizing that my library required. I had decided to choose from my floor to ceiling bookshelf just ten books to make the cross-country trip with me to my dorm room. The last thing I did before I left was carefully select this group, like a well-balanced Spotify Playlist. I tried to mix books I had read thousands of times with ones I hadn’t even cracked the spine on. I placed fun five-minute reads next to heavier, more serious books to match my future moods. In the end, these are the ten books that made it into my U Haul box:

1) As You Like It, William Shakespeare
Why: A Shakespearean classic, and also one of the few I haven’t read, As You Like It was the first book tossed into the box. It sits on my shelf in order to inspire me to one day read an unassigned Shakespeare play.

2) Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Why: This book serves as a little bit of a reminder of home for me, as this was the first book I read in freshman English with my all time favorite high school teacher. I also love dystopian novels, and this one is a classic.

3) The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
Why: Sylvia Plath’s haunting handle on emotional turmoil can sometimes be cathartic to read, and though the subject matter can make for upsetting and not exactly pleasant reading, her prose always draws me in.

4) The Gene, Siddhartha Mukherjee
Why: What kind of Biochemistry-English double major would I be if I didn’t have a biography of a gene in my bookshelf? This book expertly combines compelling stories with real information, and avoids the dense downfall of most scientific writing, so you look smart and learn something while still enjoying the writing.
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5) Not That Kind of Girl, Lena Dunham
Why: Sometimes I just want to read something for fun, and Lena Dunham’s comedic memoir is a perfect pick me up. At the same time, this book’s feminist messages are empowering.

6) Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
Why: While this book will never thrill me in the way it did when I first read it, by pulling an all-nighter to get to the big reveal, it’s still a page turner. Everyone needs a bit of excitement in his or her library, and I can always count on this book to provide that for me.

7) We Need New Names, NoViolet Bulawayo
Why:  This book was my “something new”. I bought it the day before I flew out to Houston. The idea of having an entirely untouched book in my collection was exciting, and a friend who knows me very well recommended this book, so I look forward to reading it.

8) Internal Medicine, Terrence Holt
Why: This is the book that made me want to be a doctor. It doesn’t glamorize medical professions a la Grey’s Anatomy, but instead shows you the nitty-gritty side, as real as it can get without violation patient confidentiality. While the subject matter is what drew me to this book, it’s also one of the best-written doctor’s memoirs I’ve found in a while.

9) Looking for Alaska, John Green
Why: As a busy college student, sometimes I need a book I can fly through in an hour, and Looking for Alaska is that for me. I’ve read it so many times that I can skim the whole thing and still understand it, but still get the escapism of living in a different world that books provide for me.

10) And of course, a copy of R2

​While these books might not appeal to you for the same reasons that they do to me, they’re all great, and I recommend them to anyone. Or, if none of these appeal to you, start building your own well-balanced college bookshelf.

Written by Emma E. ('20)

A Tale of Love, Pain, and Sacrifice

What if you had the power to take away people’s pain and absorb it as your own?  What if someone else could remove all your physical and emotional pain? Would you let them?  What if you could live free of pain for the rest of your life?    

It’s not often in which I come across a book that actually impacts me, a book that I’m unable to put down and even afterwards, I find myself overcome with emotion for days on end. Such a book that I had the privilege of reading is called Bruiser, a beautiful tale spun by the masterful storyteller Neal Shushterman. I came across it by complete chance after exploring the bookcases of my high school library in search of a new read and noticing its acqua-colored spine protruding from the shelves. This dark and twisting yet emotionally gripping story is chronicled from four characters’ perspectives: Tennyson, the athletic high school jock who is blinded by his arrogance; his twin sister, Brontë, who lets her sensitivity and romantic character influence her decisions; Bruiser, the loner at school whose large size and intimidating demeanor have led to his reputation as the school bully, a circle of rumors to constantly surround him, and a “Most Likely to Get the Death Penalty” vote by his peers; and finally his younger brother, Cody, who lives freely in a world of innocence. When Brontë decides to spend time with Bruiser and eventually date him, much to the school’s shock and Tennyson’s fury, she and Tennyson begin to learn more and more about Bruiser, ultimately shattering their preconceived judgments of him in ways that will haunt them.  After discovering Bruiser’s horrifying secret and why he is known as “Bruiser” rather than his real name, Tennyson and Brontë, along with Bruiser himself and Cody, undergo a profound journey that none of them anticipated, one that will change the course of their lives forever.  

This heartwarming yet thought-provoking book explores love, courage, pain, and trust. It is a journey of change, self-awareness, and above all self-sacrifice, in which the characters ponder questions about sacrifice and friendship. Shushterman forces his readers to think deeply about life, relationships, and how far one would be willing to go for love. What I found fascinating was how the characters’ distinct narrations effectively work together to create a believable, powerfully deep tale that make the characters come alive: Tennyson’s humorous and cocky attitude that changes as he transforms from cruel to caring, Brontë’s insistence that Bruiser is misunderstood and her naive desire to love and protect him that is tested by the harsh realities of life, and Cody’s exuberant words that offer a nostalgic reminder to the readers of their long-lost childhood innocence. But the ultimate power lies in Bruiser’s perspective, narrated in the form of free verse. The use of poetry adds a unique voice to the story, an artistic retelling of the world’s cruelties through a broken teenager’s lens. The poetry causes his sufferings and his attempts to comprehend why people treat each other the way they do to be incredibly relatable. It somehow makes the impossible seem believable.

Bruiser seems like a simple story of high school drama in the beginning, yet it almost immediately darkens and develops into so much more. It is a tale of what it means to have hope in a world that requires us to be constantly selfless.  It is a story about the will to love, to break our boundaries and let love in, to learn what it means to love selflessly and to do what is right despite the consequences. The book also explores other issues - alcohol, divorce, and so many family and social issues that affect people, especially children, on a daily basis. Bruiser is painful to read at times yet upon finishing it, you will be left overcome with emotion and a rethinking of your entire life. While it will undeniably leave a bruise on your heart, it will be a marking of self-awareness, rediscovery, and a desire to reevaluate the world in a way that you’ll want to preserve forever.

​Written by Sarah S.

Need a way to unwind? Looking for a new way to procrastinate? Have no fear--The List App is here! Created by B.J. Novak and Dev Flaherty in 2015, “The List App” is a quirky new social media platform that I have been spending way too much time on lately.

Made up of a ridiculously vibrant and positive community, the List App is a place to share your experiences, opinions and expertise about anything and everything. The best part? It has to be in bullet form.

Leading voices in TV, film, music, sports, comedy and fashion have already hopped on the bandwagon, sharing lists about a whole plethora of topics like “Memorable Bad Dates,” “Von Trapp Children, Ranked by Sass” and “Pictures of Barack Obama Eating Hot Dogs.”

The app’s FAQ page states, “Human beings are innately inclined towards structuring information; it’s one of our primary means of understanding. Lists are simple, powerful; the gold standard of sorting and sharing information for thousands of years.”

The structure of the app resembles other social media apps we already know and love—a news feed tab, a search function, a notifications tab and your own profile. Lists can be about anything, but the app offers a few suggestions to get you started, including “Go-to karaoke songs,” “Things that will improve the world, according to me,” “Misconceptions I had as a child,” and “Three happy moments from today.” Lists can be liked, re-listed, and commented on. You can even suggest additions to other lists, which the creator can approve and give you credit for (low key fangirled when BJ Novak added my idea to his list!).

Included below are some of my favorite lists!

If Parks and Rec Characters Wrote Autobiographies
By @sshemchuk

• Friends, Waffles, Work: An Autobiography by Leslie Knope
• Off the Grid: An Autobiography by Ron Swanson
• A Human Disaster: An Autobiography by Ben Wyatt
• Too Beautiful to be Funny: An Autobiography by Ann Perkins
• This is Literally a Book about my Life: An Autobiography by Chris Trager
• The Man of a Million Names: An Autobiography by Garry Gergich
• Very Powerful and Feared by Many: An Autobiography by April Ludgate
• Anything is a Toy if you Play with It: An Autobiography by Andy Dwyer
• Flushed with Cash: An Autobiography by Jean-Ralphio Saperstein
• A Bens is a Girl’s Best Friend: An Autobiography by Donna Meagle

Days of the Week, Ranked, According to “Friday I’m in Love”
By @bjnovak
   7. Wednesday
Grey; break my heart; heart attack; stay in bed (Note: Wednesday is identical to Tuesday but worse because it is the second straight day)
   6. Tuesday
Grey; break my heart; heart attack; stay in bed
   5. Thursday
I don’t care about you; doesn’t even start; never looking back; watch the walls instead
   4. Monday
Blue; you can fall apart; black; you can hold your head
   3. Sunday
Always comes too late
   2. Saturday
Wait
   1.Friday
I’m in love

Dream Jobs
By @elliemix (yours truly)

• Wedding videographer
• Make Apple commercials
• Design Anthropology store windows
• Work for Soul Pancake
• Invent an app
• Run the Free People blog
• Create concert sets
• Own my own stationery store
• Become a Google employee
• Write screenplays or song lyrics

7 Tips I Use to Spark my Creativity
By @gretchenrubin

1. Take notes.

I used to fight the urge to take notes that weren’t related to a specific project, but now I let myself go. Sometimes, I take notes without a purpose.
   2. Follow my interests.
Instead of focusing on what I “ought” to be doing, I allow myself to wander—by buying an odd book, poking around the internet, or exploring an unusual place.
   3. Buy supplies.
I encourage myself to make an occasional creativity-supporting purchase.
   4. Draw an idea-map.
This is a process of writing down ideas in a way that helps you see new relationships and possibilities.
   5. Enjoy the fun of failure.
Telling myself I can enjoy the “the fun of failure” has made me (somewhat) more light-hearted about taking risks.
   6. Read random magazines.
   7. Indulge in my magpie impulses.
When I have the urge to collect materials, articles or information, I now indulge it. Although I generally fight against any stuff that could become clutter, I find find that these collected materials help spur my creativity.

Have a great week! Happy listing!
​
Written by Ellie Mix (Class of '20)

Over the past year, my taste in music has evolved from the Rock & Roll my parents teethed me on. There's still a lot of love in my heart for AC/DC and Zeppelin, but man, give me some fingerplucked guitars and soft poetry, and I'm in heaven.

The love affair started with a month of nothing but Hozier in the snowy northeastern winter, something to help roll the wheels of my beat-up '89 Honda Civic to school, something to fall in and out of relationships to. Hozier tells stories through his songs, mournful and multilayered tales that transcend a linear concept of love. It's something living, something pure and bittersweet and catching.

A few months later, I overheard a song in a tea shop that set me off on a new tangent. If you’re interested in indie folk, you’ve probably heard of Gregory Alan Isakov -- and if you haven’t, here’s your cue to plug your headphones in and pull up YouTube. “The Stable Song” is the first song I've ever heard that took my breath away. It's poetry through and through, and it never quite says what it wants you to understand. It's an artful form of melancholy that both soothes and fans my homesickness for a place I’ve never been, and it’s unwoven my stress many a late night. Beyond anything, though, “The Stable Song” renewed my faith in the lyricism that I’d lost in my music, and these two lines in particular:  

now i’ve been crazy couldn’t you tell
i threw stones at the stars, but the whole sky fell.

Something had stepped out of my reach the day I realized music was an industry, and that industries are made to make money above anything else. It was always this question, with every song that came on the radio - is this a feeling or a sales pitch? Discovering the indies reminded me that music is an art form, even if it comes in the two-lines-repeated-for-three-minutes-straight variety. It’s what you need in the moment, what your friends have in their hands, what your family has in the car. We find the poetry that follows the same rhythm as our heartbeats, and we fall in love with the words that we can memorize and stylize on the way to class. Some days, it’s Barns Courtney; some, it’s Big Sean; others, you can find me bouncing back and forth between Lord of the Rings scores and the Eagles. There’s a whole universe of sound out there that you can wield throughout your day to day to compose the kind of soundtrack you wouldn’t mind being remembered with. Draw from the classics, the popular, the path less traveled. Throw your own beats into the ring, tell your own story. It’s all music, in the end; and that’s what matters.

and i ran back to that hollow again
the moon was just a sliver back then
and i ached for my heart like some tin man
when it came oh it beat and it boiled and it rang...it’s ringing

ring like crazy, ring like hell
turn me back into that wild haired gale
ring like silver, ring like gold
turn these diamonds straight back into coal
turn these diamonds straight back into coal.

Written by Kristen Hickey ('20)

​I recently finished reading Tuesdays with Morrie, a bittersweet story about “an old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lesson.” (A brief introduction of the characters: Morrie, Mitch’s favorite college professor, is the “old man,” Mitch is the “young man,” and “life’s greatest lesson” is, ironically, what it’s like to die. The lesson develops with each successive chapter.)
 
Mitch pays homage to Morrie by structuring the novel as a class that “met on Tuesdays. It began after breakfast. The subject was The Meaning of Life. It was taught from experience.”



We soon jump to a flashback of Mitch’s graduation day, when he promises Morrie that he’ll stay in touch. He doesn’t. After graduation, Mitch struggles to fulfill his dream of becoming a famous musician, and he soon grows discouraged. He turns, instead, to sports writing, and his life becomes much more fast-paced; there is no time for Mitch to wonder if he’s living the life he wants, but deep down, Mitch knows that he is unsatisfied—he just doesn’t want to confront this fact. Mitch and Morrie continue to live their separate lives (during this time, Morrie is diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a chronic nervous system disease), until a chance encounter causes them to reconnect.
 
Although Mitch has reservations that his current lifestyle will disappoint his former professor, he still arranges to meet up every Tuesday with Morrie, who is delighted to see him (Morrie hardly cares about what job Mitch has. He only cares whether Mitch is doing a job he genuinely loves). Through these Tuesday meetings and with Morrie’s encouragement, Mitch finally takes the time to reevaluate the life he’s living, and he admits to himself that his life has merely been a search for the “bigger paycheck.” Mitch is also aware that he likes himself better when he’s around Morrie, having undergone “a cleansing rinse of human kindness” with each visit. In stark contrast to Mitch’s job-driven life, Morrie has made a conscious effort to live “with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure,” even in the face of death. Morrie continues to inspire Mitch to live the life he truly wants—to “make peace with yourself and everyone around you”—even as Mitch struggles to accept Morrie’s impending death.  
 
Driven by flashbacks and simple, heartwarming dialogue, Tuesdays with Morrie reminds us that societal values (like the possibility of more money or higher salary) are transient and unsubstantial, although they may seem so important in the moment. Fear of death may cause us to desperately squeeze in as much “happiness” as we can, whether through accomplishments or material things. But instead, we should take ownership of our lives, and fill them up with activities we enjoy doing and people we enjoy seeing. And in moments of frustration or distress, we can all heed Morrie’s advice: “I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life. On the people who are coming to see me. On the stories I’m going to hear.”
 
For anyone looking for a story that discusses loss and life in an uplifting manner, Tuesdays with Morrie is the perfect choice.

Written by Evelyn Syau (’20)