Where Are They Now? Featuring: Jay Yeaple
We’re interviewing alumni who graduated from York College of Pennsylvania to see “where they are now.” Today’s interview is with Jay Yeaple, a 2017 graduate with a bachelor’s degree in literary and textual studies.
In May 2017, you graduated from York College of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in literary and textual studies. That being said, you have been an alumnus of the college for around 6 months, and have subsequently had somewhat of an opportunity to experience what is oftentimes referred to as “the real world.” How have you been spending your time thus far, and what are your plans for the future, specifically in regard to your career?
So far, I have been taking some time to get things in order, trying to declutter desk drawers and email inboxes so I can enter that ‘next chapter’ while being better organized. A lot of my time goes into volunteering for events, especially those done by York City Special Events. By doing social media posts, proofreading documents, and assisting with a lot of the manual labor, I end up feeling like an unofficial intern. There’s more that goes into event planning than people realize. As far as career goals go, I’ve spent a lot of time working on stories and trying to perfect graduate school applications. I’m sending stories out, reading a lot, and generally seeing where I can go with writing. I think it would be a lot of fun to do the writing for a TV show, so I’ve also started to experiment with screenwriting. There’s always something new happening.
Shortly before graduation, you were one of the finalists in the 2017 Bob Hoffman Student Writing Awards — your creative writing piece, “Forgetting How to Remember,” earned one of the three positions in the “Short Fiction” section. In addition, your fiction submissions, “Virtually Immortal” and “Urban Acres,” were both featured in previous issues of York Review. Those pieces aside, are there any other creative pieces that you are in the process of writing? Additionally, have you created any websites and/or social media dedicated to your writing portfolio?
It’s very dangerous to ask me what I’m working on, given my long writing to-do list. There are plenty of short stories, sure, but the big project is my latest set of revisions for a book series. I finished an original draft in 2009 as something I did for fun, but since then the ideas have kept coming and in my head it turns into a series of five books, with plenty of room for short stories or other supplemental writing that expands that universe. The problem is how daunting it feels to open a Word document and wonder how long it will take to read and revise 200+ page entries. I had a small online writing portfolio, but the privacy settings changed and I didn’t want my excerpts to be shifted to a different platform, so right now my primary author platform is my Twitter account. When I start to publish the books, I’ll reevaluate what I’m doing as far as social media. There’s a lot that has to be balanced with time actually spent writing.
Creative writing aside, you also have experience working as a tutor in the Writing Center. How many semesters did you work at the Writing Center, and how would you describe your overall experience? In addition, do you believe that working as a writing tutor was beneficial to you from a personal and/or professional standpoint? Lastly, do you have any suggestions for students that may be interested in becoming writing tutors in the future?
I was there for three regular semesters, as well as one summer semester. Overall, it was one of my absolute favorite things about college in regard to both personal and professional growth. Having that one-on-one working relationship with students was really fulfilling, especially when they’d come into a session feeling totally lost and leave with a plan. When you’re working with a student who has to write a paper about a topic you know nothing about, it becomes a learning experience. You learn about their topic, and you improve your own teaching abilities at the same time. I’m definitely interested in tutoring in the future, or possibly teaching a writing class. I encourage any students with interest to take WRT 290 or even spend a bit of time at the Writing Center talking with tutors. I made a lot of friends working there and just wish that I had decided to become a tutor sooner!
Presently, you’re still living in York, Pennsylvania. Throughout the course of your life, you’ve had the opportunity to live in the area, viewing it from both the perspective of a college student and the perspective of a general resident. Are there any notable differences between these perspectives? Furthermore, have you determined a specific location/set of locations where you’d like to establish a career (do you intend to remain a York resident)?
I grew up downtown, so I have some bias there. I’m used to entering small businesses, art galleries, restaurants, etc. where I know people. I’ve never lived in a small town where everybody knows each other, but having that crowd of regulars or even people who you pass on the street every day and recognize is really nice. If you’re a student living on campus and only staying on campus, I guess that’s like being in a bubble. The notion of going into the city may seem dangerous, and it’s completely possible to go through a college career without viewing yourself as a York resident. When I lived on campus, I was still going downtown and helping with events and only really got a glimpse of that other perspective through hearing other people talk. Sure, some areas are better than others, but I’ve seen a lot of good stuff in the city. Plenty of people are saying that the downtown area is experiencing a revival, and First Friday crowds are a good sign of that. I think that the college’s initiatives to increase community engagement and offer shuttle services may help to bridge that gap.
As far as where I want to establish a career, I haven’t decided. I’ll always have a place and friends in York, but I want to travel (when I can find the time) and move around. I was thinking the other day that it would be fun to just go around the country, maybe renting a room for a few weeks at a time in different towns. Whether or not that’s possible is another matter altogether, but it’s nice to think about. It would certainly be helpful as a way to see what’s out there and get some new writing influences.
If you’d like to keep up with Jay Yeaple, follow him on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/JayDoeWritesTho