"Despite All the Scary" by Lauren Summers
– New York, here I come
“The opportunity approached me like a subway roaring up to the platform of what was my former life.”
Lauren Summers is a writer and poet from Greensboro, North Carolina, recently relocated to New York City. A graduate from the university of North Carolina at Greensboro with a B.A. in English and minor in German, she enjoys writing fiction and poetry. She received special recognition and a separate award from the North Carolina Society of Historians for her story “All that I Could Say” in That Southern Thing, the 2020 collection from the personal Story publishing project. She plans to pursue her MFA and thereafter publish.
Author’s Talk
Lauren Summers
When I learned about the 2021 call for personal stories themed “Luck and Opportunity” and read what this book would be about, I decided to tell my story on my move to New York City because this move happened during a period in my life when I felt I had no opportunity coming my way for a very long time, and I had a rather hopeless outlook on my life. I wanted to write first about my personal perspective as a young woman and writer who was afraid to take a chance on herself and her dreams, and second the realities of taking a risk on something in the name of “opportunity.” I admittedly was hesitant to share this story during such a tumultuous time in history and kept in careful consideration the language and tone I was using to convey that this pandemic story was simply my story. I would even go on to say it’s not a “success” story but a “life” story. This story was about one of the biggest decisions I’ve ever made in my life thus far, and with every major event in my life, I respond with what I do best—write about it.
My writing has grown, evolved, and/or reshaped itself over the numerous years I have been working on my craft. The first time I tried my hand at writing was in a composition book at age nine. As a teenager, I learned how to write poetry in a creative writing class, dabbling heavily in abstract poetry initially, eventually focusing on spoken word in college. Throughout life, writing has served as a foundation for me in which I can express myself most genuinely. With words, I’m able to create entire worlds, whether I’m taking someone into a fictional world I’ve created or into a real point in history where I, the writer, have stood in. Outside of having works included in the 2020 and 2021 Personal Story Publishing Project, I’ve also had a poem published in Lucky Jefferson’s 2020 Exposed issue. It is my hope to be able to share my own book of published poems in the coming years."
