Lefebvre looks at love in her creative thesis
by Andrea Fineman
Managing Editor
Arts | 8/25/09
Posted online at 12:59 AM EST on 8/25/09
Heather Lefebvre '10 is currently working on her senior thesis, a series of short stories about different kinds of love. She is also an Undergraduate Department Representative for the English & American Literature Department and a staffer for the campus magazine Where the Children Play. She maintains a blog at http://collegejolt.com/author/ heather-l. Lefebvre spoke to the Justice about her involvement with literary arts on campus and her ambitions for the future.
JustArts: How did you come upon this theme of varieties of love for your thesis?
Heather Lefebvre: Love stories are just what I do, I suppose. I'm a sucker for character-driven stories, and aren't most stories driven by love in some way? What's a better motivator than that?
JA: How did you decide to do creative writing seriously? Were you always interested, or did you decide to focus on writing after you came to Brandeis?
HL: I've always loved stories; I've been writing stories since I was four or five, since I could read. Until I was 14 or so there was a question of whether, exactly, that would be what I ended up doing-I was really into film and theater when I was a kid, so I oscillated between acting and singing and writing and directing until eighth grade or so-but once I hit high school it was clear I wasn't interested in anything to the extent I was fiction.
JA: Tell me about the award you won last year.
HL: Prof. Thisbe Nissen (ENG) was kind enough to nominate a story I wrote, "We Welcome All Sorts," for the 2008 to 2009 J.V. Cunningham Award, and I won in the Creative Arts category. I didn't expect anything to happen, but apparently people enjoyed reading it! I've never won anything related to writing before, so it was incredibly exciting. The story should be on display in the Writing Center until May.
JA: Can you describe "We Welcome All Sorts" a little? Also, can you explain what this award is?
HL: "We Welcome All Sorts" is a weird little story that just developed, seemingly of its own accord, last summer. It's a quest story about a zombie named Thomas trying to make his way in the world, just like everybody else-except, of course, he's not like everyone else. As for the J.V. Cunningham Award, it's an annual competition Brandeis hosts for "excellence in writing," wherein professors nominate student papers (in the categories of Creative Arts and Creative Writing, student stories) to a select committee who then chooses a certain number of winners-up to five. J.V. Cunningham himself was a poet who taught at Brandeis from 1953 to 1980.
JA: What do you plan to do next year? Are you going to continue with creative writing, or are you going to follow an entirely different career path?
HL: Right now the plan is to keep writing. For the first couple years of college my standard "What are you going to do?" answer was that I wanted to work in publishing-which is true; I would like to work in the book publishing industry-but lately I have been leaning towards the magazine industry. I maintain a blog for an internship [with College Jolt, a college guidebook company] and really enjoy writing the articles. I dig editing, too. I would love to work on a literary magazine.
JustArts: How did you come upon this theme of varieties of love for your thesis?
Heather Lefebvre: Love stories are just what I do, I suppose. I'm a sucker for character-driven stories, and aren't most stories driven by love in some way? What's a better motivator than that?
JA: How did you decide to do creative writing seriously? Were you always interested, or did you decide to focus on writing after you came to Brandeis?
HL: I've always loved stories; I've been writing stories since I was four or five, since I could read. Until I was 14 or so there was a question of whether, exactly, that would be what I ended up doing-I was really into film and theater when I was a kid, so I oscillated between acting and singing and writing and directing until eighth grade or so-but once I hit high school it was clear I wasn't interested in anything to the extent I was fiction.
JA: Tell me about the award you won last year.
HL: Prof. Thisbe Nissen (ENG) was kind enough to nominate a story I wrote, "We Welcome All Sorts," for the 2008 to 2009 J.V. Cunningham Award, and I won in the Creative Arts category. I didn't expect anything to happen, but apparently people enjoyed reading it! I've never won anything related to writing before, so it was incredibly exciting. The story should be on display in the Writing Center until May.
JA: Can you describe "We Welcome All Sorts" a little? Also, can you explain what this award is?
HL: "We Welcome All Sorts" is a weird little story that just developed, seemingly of its own accord, last summer. It's a quest story about a zombie named Thomas trying to make his way in the world, just like everybody else-except, of course, he's not like everyone else. As for the J.V. Cunningham Award, it's an annual competition Brandeis hosts for "excellence in writing," wherein professors nominate student papers (in the categories of Creative Arts and Creative Writing, student stories) to a select committee who then chooses a certain number of winners-up to five. J.V. Cunningham himself was a poet who taught at Brandeis from 1953 to 1980.
JA: What do you plan to do next year? Are you going to continue with creative writing, or are you going to follow an entirely different career path?
HL: Right now the plan is to keep writing. For the first couple years of college my standard "What are you going to do?" answer was that I wanted to work in publishing-which is true; I would like to work in the book publishing industry-but lately I have been leaning towards the magazine industry. I maintain a blog for an internship [with College Jolt, a college guidebook company] and really enjoy writing the articles. I dig editing, too. I would love to work on a literary magazine.
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