About Me
Introducing: Alexis Zarco
Stranger, we haven’t met yet, but I hope we can be good friends.
Who am I?
I suppose that’s the question everyone asks themselves.
Daughter, sister, student.
These are all titles that I have been given and claimed, but they’re not the whole of me. They do not make up my entirety, even though sometimes it feels like they do. As people, we are always changing — we are continually gaining new life experiences and growing because of them. We add new titles, shed the old ones, and strive for better ones. So I guess the question we should all be asking is…
Who am I right now?
At this very moment, I am a young woman with poetry in my lungs. I breathe it in. I am a sister, a daughter, a friend, a soon-to-be graduate, and a fierce advocate for mental health. I am a young Mexican American writer who loves sweet coffee, strawberries, and avocados — but not all at once. I am a dreamer but also a realist, an idealist, but also a pragmatist. I am stubborn, selfish, yet selfless. I am hardworking. I believe in magic and love — sometimes they’re the same thing. I believe in humanity, but it doesn’t always seem that way. I am compassion and hatred, and contradiction. I am me.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams and live the life you have imagined. — Henry David Thoreau
My mother and father gave me the name, Alexis Zarco. I’ve shared a romance with the written word from the very moment I learned how to read. When I learned how to pick up a pencil, I started writing “books.” It was just my mom stapling sheets of copy paper together so I could draw stick figure comics, but that’s how my habit of writing began. I knew from a young age that I wanted to write, and I’ve been chasing that childhood dream ever since.
In June, I will be graduating with my Bachelor’s Degree in Literature and Writing. I spent the last two years working as a Copy Editor for the digital-first, independent newspaper, The Triton. Now you might be asking yourself why I chose to be an editor instead of a writer. Well, being a copy editor taught me that writing does not always equate brilliance and vice versa! Copyediting allowed me to develop a further understanding of the writing process. I realized that writing often centers around finding, addressing, and often bending the limits about what we know of the craft. Repeatedly.
I also worked as an Instructional Assistant for a professor who taught an introductory course on Writing Fiction. This was my favorite position because I was able to directly interact with young writers. I’ve always believed that writing is an avenue to create human connections and it’s up to a great teacher to show you how to do that. I tried to be as involved as I possibly could. I helped facilitate the process of writing within various modes and genres, I mediated workshopping sessions both in and out of class, I helped edit pieces when students needed guidance, and most importantly, I created a sense of community among my students. Many of my students are still friends today and that's because they were connecting through storytelling. A few of my students went on to become Instructional Assistants themselves in other writing-related courses and a few adopted Writing as their double major or minor.
The biggest thing I’ve taken away from my writing evolution in college is to be open-minded. I came into college thinking I was going to write dystopian novels and create protagonists that would save the world. I was obsessed with YA books and dystopian novels. I wanted to be like those writers because I knew how much they impacted me, but obviously, my experience did not go that way. I am so thankful it didn’t. Because I was open to experiencing new forms of writing, I had the opportunity to learn from so many writers, which have affected and inspired my own writing beyond the expectations that I had set for myself.
Instead of writing YA books (not that there’s anything wrong with that, I love a good YA binge), I accidentally found my purpose. I found the strength to write about my own experiences and it has helped me connect with so many people. I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I hadn’t taken a few chances.
I’ve just joined Medium, so I’m excited to share what I’ve written with you all. This is a big step for me. I’ve never displayed my work publicly in this way before, but I am willing to take a chance on this. I am open to being uncomfortable, I am open to connection! It’s a small price to pay if it means I’m one step closer to achieving my dreams.