October Friedman 3/22/2026 Justin Burnell Memorial Scholarship Essay As an evolving queer creative writer, I want to showcase the people in my community. Specifically, I'm working on a series of novels. The first book of this series stars two lesbians that are stranded in an unfamiliar world who eventually become lovers. In my story, two girls are sent to a dimension where they meet a large god that, upon seeing them, swallows them. The inside of this god's body is a new planet the girls are forced to inhabit. I plan to differentiate the nuances of speaking between the girls (who speak with personal pronouns) and the religious faction on the planet (who speak with plural pronouns). These divergent voices will come together to create an idiosyncratic piece of literature reflecting my vision. I have many experiences with perspectives that wildly differed from mine, and some that were quite similar, throughout my seventeen years of life. For the first two years of high-school, I went to the small public school in my rural hometown. Parents had already taught their kids to be outspoken in their hatefulness. The homophobia and general emotional cruelty I experienced was constant. If I wasn't being called slurs, my classmates were laughing at literally anything I said. To them, my existence itself was something to ridicule and demean. I didn't let that perspective fester and infect me. I could have conformed and hidden who I was, but I refused. Instead, I learned to not let their hate change me. I actively sought out and found community elsewhere, with those who accepted me. In my chosen community, I found a gender non-conforming friend. Even though we are both similar in that aspect, we view our gender in varying ways. This taught me that even in like-minded communities there is still an array of perspectives. I see my gender as its own thing–not boy, girl, or nonlinear, but just me and what I am. My friend views their gender as a man and a woman both inhabiting the same space. This really helped me see gender itself through a new lens. I have grand dreams. They aren't delusions if they are achievable. I intend to dedicate myself to my writing until it's at the Pulitzer level. I often center my writing on queer, gender non-conforming, disability, and mental health themes. I create characters not as caricatures or monoliths, but as actual people who are dealing with issues inside and outside of those topics. I want to open up the literary landscape to not only see these types of people, but also to understand them. In addition to majoring in Creative Writing as an undergraduate, I aspire to earn a masters and my doctorate degrees in Creative Writing. Stagnation breeds complacency and restlessness. I know this from first hand experience. Creativity pulled me out of my isolation and suicidal ideation. If my words could convey to at least one person that I am proud of them, that they aren't suffering alone, that they have the power to be great, then I will have achieved my purpose. I need to be able to hold someone up the same way literature did for me. I know that college will provide the support, space, and skills to be able to script this future.