Hello, my name is Jessica York and I'm a rising Junior at Keene State College studying English Writing. Since I was young, I've always wanted to be a writer. This really took off in fifth grade when in my classroom library, my teacher had the first three Harry Potter books. One thing I feel as though my school never fully understood about me, even until I graduated high school, is even though I have an IEP (Individualized Education Program) my accommodations are for math and science classes. Literature and literacy was something I understood fairly well. However, after having read through the first three books with ease over a two month period, my teachers and ed techs in the specialized program I was in both discouraged me from finishing the series until I was in eighth grade. I don't understand why I was discouraged to read. Maybe it was comprehension level of the books, maybe it was content; but the sad thought that sits in my head is they might have looked at the fact that I had an IEP, that I was routinely taken out of classrooms to go to one of the special ed rooms, that I wasn't capable enough to read books as big or as potentially "complex" as Harry Potter. I didn't stop reading, and onward I went with the books, deciding I will borrow them from the school's library if my teachers were not going to allow me to read them from the classroom library. I finished the fifth book, by the time my class did a book project where we were to pretend to be the author of whichever book we read and then we were to give a little biography speech in front of our parents. I was so into pretending to be J.K. Rowling, that I perfected my British accent and everything. This wasn't the first time I was discouraged to read a book or a series of books. I was discouraged from teachers reading Geronimo Stilton, Percy Jackson, and a few other dystopian books. This was a very important moment in my life, one I think back on a lot, because I finished the entire series to the confusion of all of the teachers around me. I found more and more books to read along the way to the point when my lexile level was tested in seventh grade, I was at a reading level of a sophomore in college at thirteen years old. While I absolutely devoured book after book, I began learning how to type and use computers which opened the door for me to begin typing my stories instead of hand writing them. This with out a doubt saved me from carpal tunnel. Being introduced into typing was one of the best things that could have ever happened to me, namely because I felt like an official author. My hours writing were spent typing page after page after page on Google Docs as I began to curate my stories and bring them from just daydreams in my head to something real in my eyes. The older I got, the less extroverted I found myself to be. Unfortunately the harsh reality of a student who gets pulled out of classrooms by special ed teachers in the most indiscreet manner possible, makes room for comments and bullying; of which I suffered. This made my story telling turn into a form of therapy, I would write about the person I wish I was who was surrounded by friends I wish I had. During middle school and even now, mental health was something I struggled with, it was something that went hidden and unnoticed. It was something I hid. Reading and writing became the only form of escape that I got from the chaos that was happening inside of me. I no longer read books I found interesting, I found which ever had the thickest spine because that meant I could hide within its pages longer than a book that had a skinnier spine. I found ways to draw out my stories so they wouldn't end and I could live in them and find sanctum within the worlds I cultivated through my words. I got dangerously thin, I was incredibly unhealthy, and my best friends had either moved away or were people who had me within their group because I was a body to fill an empty chair or an empty carseat when the "go to friends" weren't there. This is not a life I wish on anyone. The road I had to walk to get to where I am today was not easy. It felt as though I was walking vertically at times. Just as literature helped me find some sort of comfort and peace, it also helped me heal old wounds. A few book titles that were skillfully suggested to me by a very observant librarian helped me feel seen and heard. These books tackled difficult topics that I myself was trying to make sense of. It is a very cathartic feeling to see a character within a book struggle with their mind, their body, managing the surroundings around them. Reading their inner thoughts, which low and behold are parallel to the author's thoughts made me feel less isolated. I have always believed that there is nothing more powerful than literature. In a world where AI is rising, and writing based job listings are about training AI chatbots to sound more human, there is nothing more significant than literature written by a person. The one thing I hope AI can never mime is human emotion, and I doubt it ever will. If I have learned anything through lived experiences, it is that human emotion is incredibly complex and intricate. So much so, no AI author in my mind could ever perfectly recreate anything regarding human behavior and emotion. My biggest goal in life is to be a published author. On a deeper level, I want someone to feel at home within my pages. I want someone to feel seen and heard and to know that I myself have struggled to and that we may not be in the same boat but we are in the same ocean, we are in the same harbor, so never feel like a stranger. I've decided I don't have to be a world renown author. I don't have to be a household name or one day a "classic" I am content if my stories, if just one, can make a single person feel empowered enough to make it through tomorrow, or the day after or the month after, until they don't even think about the time that has lapsed since they last felt alone. If my name, my artwork, can create that imprint on even just one person, I have made it as an author. That will be my legacy, knowing I have helped someone the way I was helped through the power of literature.

My mother taught me a lot of things growing up. Though a very strict woman when it comes to raising my sisters and I, I am thankful for my upbringing. My mother taught me love and compassion for others at a very young age. She was always telling me to always be kind because you never know what goes on in another's life. This is something I've carried with me through out my day to day. I've always chosen to be kind first, even to people who have not been kind to me, because at the end of the day maybe my kindness towards another person could have changed the outlook of their entire day. "A smile goes a mile" is what she would tell me. Her philosophy is if I smile at one person, then they will smile at another and the train will continue for miles and wrap around the world. My mother taught me about open mindedness. Growing up, I went to church after school to get confirmed. This was a venture I did not particularly enjoy, however I learned a lot from this. This sparked my own religious journey. I learned not only about Christianity through this after school program, but it sparked interest in learning about other religions as well. This made me a more well rounded person because I know, at a base line, different religious beliefs until I settled on my own spiritualistic beliefs. With this, my mom supported me in telling her about what my tarot cards said, as well as letting me pull cards for her. She told me she doesn't particularly believe in the tarot cards as I do, but she loves to listen to me talking about them. That is something I do all the time with those around me when they are talking about their beliefs. I might not believe what the other person is saying, but who I am to tell them that they're wrong? It's their own thoughts, actions, and beliefs just as I have my own. Having an open mind towards different beliefs has developed a unique outlook on life. I have an affinity for learning about different cultures and different parts of the world. Overall, the best way my mom impacted my life is the fact that I have two sisters. With her guidance when I was younger this taught me many life skills such as tension mitigation. This came in handy when my sisters and I would get in fights. Sharing is a huge thing we learned as well. As all young children learn to share their toys my aspect of sharing that I learned became incredibly valuable when I moved into college: sharing a room. From the age of four to about seventeen, I shared a room. My senior year of high school I had my own room for a whole year before moving into college. Unfortunately my freshman year roommate never had to share a room which caused some strife between us. However, leaning back on my tension mitigation and open mindedness, I was able to help my freshman year roommate with learning how to share a room and be wary of common space verses personal space. My mother is a kind, passionate, and affectionate person with a soul that loves to be there for others and help others. Her care and kindness throughout my childhood and even until now is something I am forever grateful for. I would not be the person I am today without the lessons she had directly and indirectly taught me.

Writing began as a way for me to help myself fall asleep at night. I am an avid daydreamer which is wonderful when I want to sit down and write my stories. I can vividly hear, see, feel, smell, and taste everything that I am writing about because of my daydreaming abilities. However, I don't always have a kill switch. When I was younger, I would fill composition book after composition book with hand written stories until I was introduced to Google Docs. Here I began to write where ever my little daydreamer mind took me. I would tell myself and my sisters my stories at night when none of us could sleep, and from there I developed a love for writing. Writing soon turned away from being a way for me to write out all of my incoherent daydreams that were only ever a cluster of scenes to being a way to help work through a significantly tough time during my teenage years. I was in a toxic high school relationship where I was taken advantage of. I had no space anywhere to talk about what was and had happened to me, so I took to writing. My stories became a way for me to process what I was going through during this relationship and afterwards. I took to writing and weaving my experiences into what I was writing as a way for me to gain back control after being in a situation where I had no control. My body did not feel like my own, my thoughts were the only thing I felt I had control over. So, needing to gain some sort of traction within my life and finding a place where no one could harm me and no one could take away my autonomy, I began to write. This is how I learned how to type without looking at the keyboard, in which, I can type incredibly fast without looking at the keyboard because of muscle memory. My quick fingers on the keyboard stems from my brain working faster than my fingers, hence why I developed my own sort of shorthand for words and sayings when I am hand writing my stories for my sake. Storytelling has always been a huge part of who I am as a person. I'm currently working on a manuscript that is one of the may that has helped me through numerous difficult times. Studying English Writing at Keene State College and being able to turn to my professors whom a lot of are published with their own creative writing and original works has helped foster my love and narrative voice. Writing and even reading stories that have characters who struggle with the same things I've struggled with have helped my mental health. Reading wise, it lets me know that I am not alone. My hope as a writer is to inspire someone to be a writer. To let who ever is reading my words know that what ever they are going through currently or what they may have already gone through they are not alone.

"Icebreaker", "Darius the Great is Not Okay", the "Carry On" series all taught me that it is okay to struggle with your mental health, it is okay to not know your place in the world, and it is okay to rely on others for help. "Icebreaker" by Hannah Grace is a romance between a figure skater and a hockey player. As a figure skater myself, I loved this book right off the bat. I resonated the most with the main character Anastasia because of her struggles with eating. It is an unfortunately common theme with figure skaters to struggle with body images and eating disorders, this is something that I have struggled greatly with. Within this book, there are themes of Anastasia actively getting help for her mental health which motivated me to seek help with my own eating habits. "Darius the Great is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram is about a young boy, Darius who is struggling with his Iranian identity. His mother was raised Persian but his father is American and he felt split down the middle of how he wanted to identify. This story also has strong themes of struggling with and learning how to cope with depression as well as identity. Darius, upon visiting family in Iran, develops a crush on a local boy. This book is about the main character learning to love himself and his body and learning healthy ways to cope with his mental health. Which, relating to "Icebreaker" is something I struggled with and reading about this character's sexual identity struggle resonated with my own. In which, the "Carry On" Series by Rainbow Rowell discusses and explores sexuality in a way that is not only respectful towards the LGBTQ+ community, but it is done in such a way that lets people know it's alright to feel aimless and try new things. This book follows "The worst chosen one ever" Simon Snow as his enemy Baz Pitch becomes his boyfriend by the end of the series. This book deals a lot with not only sexuality but mental health and loss. These books and so many others are what inspire me to write. Literature that tackles sensitive topics like mental health and sexuality are important. They're safe spaces for people like myself to see parts of ourselves represented in an accurate and respectful manner; it let's us feel like we are not alone. I know that is how I felt reading those books, and that feeling is freeing. There is an otherworldly power to literature. People can experience new topics, different taboos, and even learn new things just from picking up a book. The books that I want to write are all written with the hope that not only people are entertained by what is in front of them, but people are able to see themselves on the pages. Those who are struggling with mental health or figuring out their place in the world and where they belong will see themselves on the pages of my books as they will others and tell themselves "I'm not alone." Without the books I listed above I would have felt alone, but there is something magic about literature that made me feel less alone and have the courage to seek help for my own struggles, encourage others to do the same, as well as being thoroughly entertained by these characters whom I've all come to adore.

The signature, fan favorite pumpkin spice has a special place in my heart. This is my little sister Sara's favorite coffee flavor. When I got my license we would always go to Starbucks and get pumpkin spice lattes. The fun thing about getting these lattes is we would then proceed to drive in circles in our small town of York, Maine. This was an after school staple during my Junior and Senior year of high school and Sara's Seventh and Eighth grade of middle school. We would invite her friends on the now infamous "Beach Runs." We are very fortunate to live right on the coast so our driving around in circles consisted of driving along Long Sands, up to Nubble Light house, through the down town area of Short Sands, before driving dow Ridge Road to go back to the top of the Beach Run. When I went to college, I missed these Beach Runs dearly. Namely because I'm two hours away from home and up in the Mountains of Keene, New Hampshire. However, college has made me appreciate these Beach Runs with Sara. Our town is a tourist town, making Beach Runs more difficult in the summer because of the amount of beach goers and tourists. The fall is the best time to go because there are only locals out and about. Every time I come home from school, especially during the fall, I pick Sara up from the high school and we go get ourselves some pumpkin spice lattes then go on our Beach Run while she fills me in on everything that has happened since I've been at school. This includes family drama she has overheard from Mom and Dad, school drama, and just about anything she wants to talk about that she saves for these "tell all, nothing is too much information" Beach Run Gossip sessions. To me, the taste of pumpkin spice is One Direction on shuffle, the windows slightly open so I can smell the salty air that I miss from being at school, and Sara gossiping and telling me to "park at the light house, I have to show you the receipts" (Or proof of her gossip.) Beach Runs are a year round venture, only they're more abundant in the fall and they taste sweeter in the fall with a pumpkin spice latte in our hands while Sara is telling me how she is convinced One Direction is going to get back together before telling me about the newest York High School Gossip.

My family and I are adventurers. We love going camping, skiing, and traveling. Some of my fondest memories are from our family adventures. One of the "York Family Classics" is the story of the "Doom Buggies of The Outer Banks in North Carolina." One of the beaches is closed for typical beach purposes and open for people to drive on it. The unique thing about this beach is there are wild horses that will roam not only on the sands but in the backroads and on the streets in the neighborhood that is a stones throw from the water. My family, and two other who we were on vacation with all decided to rent Dune Buggies to go drive on the beach in style to go see some wild horses. Driving on the beach excited all of us kids (which there were seven of us) because we all grew up in York, Maine, right on the water. We have our own collection of beaches, none of which we're allowed to drive on so this was exciting to us. When we got the buggies, we were all floored at how cool they looked for all of one hour before we started seeing how the entire buggy was held together by poor welding, screws, duct tape, and a good Hail Mary. On paper, the buggies were such a good idea and we did look stylish on the road. But they were constantly getting stuck in the sand and or stalling not only on the beach but on the main road leading to the beach. Trying to "happy thoughts, good vibes" our way through our adventure, we were on the beach when my family's Buggie died. It would not turn on, and we were so far down the beach that there were no cars or tow trucks to help pull us out. Better yet, we had no service either. The other two families ended up driving out of the beach saying they will wave down a truck and send them our way. Since my family has the oldest kids, we stayed while all of the younger ones drove back with the other two families. While we were stranded on the beach and played about as much "I Spy" as a beach would let us, we all began just chit chatting about any and everything to which my dad said to my sisters and I "you know girls, you're doing a good job at just embracing the suck." We laughed uncontrollably at that comment to which my dad told us during boot camp and basic training he was taught that line of "embracing the suck." Whenever I am struggling or in a bad spot where I cannot do anything about the situation to make it better, that is the line that I think of. in fact, I can hear my dad's laugh, see his smile and his hands thrown up as he shrugs his shoulders as he says in his thick New England accent: "Ya gotta embrace the suck, kiddo. It ain't fun, but embrace it." That comment was within the first of four and a half hours we were stranded on the beach before someone came along to jump start our Doom Buggie (we say "doom" instead of "dune" because we were doomed from the start seeing as it was held together by duct tape) and follow us out to the main road where our friends were with their car to drive us home. I learned that nothing teaches you patience more effectively than being stuck on a beach "embracing the suck."

I always have and will be an advocate and someone to go to for support when it comes to mental health. I've been in spots mentally where I've had no one to rely on or lean on when I really needed the support, so I've always been there for others. No one should feel as alone as I did. I may not be a board certified psychologist or be pursuing a career in such, but my biggest goal in life is to become an author. Through out my life dealing with mental health I've found nothing more comforting than reading about a character who has the same struggles as myself. "Darius the Great is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram, "Carry On", "Wayward Son", and "Any Way the Wind Blows" by Rainbow Rowell, all deal a lot with identity, depression, and overall themes of mental health that are woven into the main story line. These are the types of books I want to write; ones where people can resonate with the characters, feel accurately represented by them, and as though they are not alone. Literature and media where main characters are seeking help for their mental health are important, especially for those who are struggling because it gives them a sense of "I am not alone." There is nothing more powerful than the influence of literature and the media. For example, during my own struggles, when I wanted to do nothing but rot in my bed, I was rewatching Marvel's movies and TV show series because it's comforting to me. Within watching all of this, I watched my favorite character, Bucky Barnes go to therapy to help work through all of the traumatic things he has been to. It normalized getting help and putting in the work on yourself to where that is exactly what I did. I got up, out of bed, and I began reaching out to get myself the help I needed. Even though he's a fictional character. My future career as an author has the goal of writing an entertaining book that people enjoy all while normalizing aspects of life that should be normalized: struggling with mental health, advocating for yourself, and doing the daunting task of those first steps of getting help. It's important we as a society destigmatize mental health and have accessible help for those who may not be as fortunate as myself.

Mental health is extremely important to me because of its impact on my life. My freshman year of college I had one of the worst eating disorder relapses. I was incredibly sick, I couldn't stand for very long, let alone walk around campus to get to classes. I would get incredibly dizzy while my body was physically in a downward spiral of being starving, however my insecurities and anxieties around food would take over and remove my appetite and replace it with feeling as though I'm going to throw up. This caused my GPA to tank, resulting in losing a very crucial merit scholarship that I need in order to continue my education at Keene State College. My education is incredibly important to me, and I'm genuinely upset that for a time my mental health got to such a low point where it has jeopardized such. I've since been able to make huge strides in not only getting my GPA higher to the acceptable standard to retain my merit scholarship, but I've recovered enough physically to indulge in my favorite activities. I never fully appreciated going on walks until I was too sick to walk around. When I started to get better, one of the first things I did was go on a walk. In the beginning, the walks I went on were very short and slow, however, just being able to walk around slowly, breathing in fresh spring air, made a world of a difference to me. The spring of 2023, I set a goal for myself, of which I met. I am an avid figure skater. I'm entering year thirteen on the ice, I have skated for three years competitively, and currently am employed under Rinks Service Group as a Learn to Skate Coach at Keene Ice and a skate guard at Strawbery Banke (Portsmouth, NH) and Thompson's Point (Portland, ME). Figure skating has always been my go to whenever I've needed a mental break from everything around me. During the spring in 2023, when I was super sick, I had to take the longest break I've ever taken from the ice. This hurt my soul. I've skated since I was roughly seven years old, and during this time, I could feel that seven year old inside of me crying because I had to stop skating to prioritize my health. Though this was only temporary, it still stung. What helped get me out of this relapse was my home rink's annual Spring show. Every April, my home rink in Dover NH, always holds a skating show that ever since I was about nine years old I have skated in. Spring 2023, I told myself "Jes, you need to put in more work to get better so you can skate in the show." So I did. I came up with ways to help myself be able to sit down, eat a meal, so I could safely skate around the arena and then later I could skate at the level I was skating at before I relapsed. This was not easy, especially since I had been off the ice from the middle of January to about the middle of March. Physically, it was hard to go from severely underweight and sick to able to skate at the level I used to be at. I wasn’t able to skate as well as I wanted to in the show, but nevertheless it motivated me enough to put an extra effort to get better. Skating has always motivated me and it continues to every day and every spring show season.