“Stella Parks on Writing and Audiences” Town Branch p. 76 https://vimeo.com/103938664 STELLA PARKS: I wrote all the time, I mean like, it’s the classic, whatever you wanted to do you did when you were super little, like I have like, my mom saved all these little notebooks of me just like writing bizarre stories about my life as a red balloon floating around or, you know, that sort of thing. Um, but when I got older, when I was in high school, I discovered fan fiction on the internet, which, um, is pretty widely derided at this point, but um, it was the first time I was able to write for an audience, and that was a pretty thrilling experience for a fourteen-year-old, to, you know, write something out of your imagination involving these beloved characters, and then have other people like email you or post or comment that this was cool and that that’s what they always wanted to see happen and suddenly having these people who weren’t your parents telling you like “Wow, this is great!” Um, and eventually you know I became tired of writing about other people’s characters, and so I wanted to write about my own things, um my own ideas, and that was kind of like I guess what got me into it, was just like, “Wow this is really cool!” when people also read what you write instead of it just being a private activity that you do, you know, in a notebook in your bedroom. Um, and so that was uh I guess an influential factor. And then, then I decided that, you know, that going to a traditional liberal arts college and getting a degree in English was not gonna be uh the best path for me, but writing has always been a part of my life.