by Livvy Jean
It was February when I was home sick from work, exhausted and feeling gross, that I got a call from the poet Deborah Landau informing me that I had been accepted into NYU’s creative writing Master’s program for fiction. She told me that I have been chosen as a Goldwater Fellow, meaning my entire tuition would be waived and I would receive a generous living stipend. She said more, but in truth, I blacked out from joy and told her that I was going to cry and that I was home sick from work and that I couldn’t believe this.
She said, “I like that reaction.”
I called my parents first and then, right after, I texted Judith Lindbergh in caps, telling her the news and then saying THANK YOU A MILLION. I AM THE WRITER I AM BECAUSE OF THE WRITERS CIRCLE.
I joined TWC when I was a sophomore in high school. Back then I thought I would be a poet, which on reflection I can’t help but laugh at, as I am an obsessive fiction and short story writer.
I remember coming to TWC every Saturday morning at SOPAC and instantly feeling like I entered a safe haven. The other people I met there treated me with respect, kindness, and honesty. It was an amazing feeling to be mentored and guided. I learned that my writing doesn’t need to live in my notebook. That it can be shared and can be more than just a hobby.
It was through TWC that I also built a community. The people I met I often referred to “my writing friends” because it was true. They challenged and pushed me to be a writer. At TWC everyone wants everyone to succeed. There was something beautiful about being able to connect with people both as writers and friends that I valued so dearly.
When I went to college I took the lessons TWC taught me and began to submit my writing for publication. Thanks to TWC, I have had pieces in The Adroit Journal and The Washington Square Review. I have received support and generous funding for my writing from The University of Iowa, The University of Massachusetts Amherst, and starting this fall, at NYU.
It felt beyond full circle when I became a teacher. When Judith asked me, she said, “You’re a paid and published author, and you know how we work. You’re qualified.”
There is something uniquely special about The Writers Circle. It is a program that helps you find the right words, that guides you in sharing your thoughts. And yet when I sit down to write about how TWC shaped me into the writer I am, I am unable to find all the words I want to say, except to trust me.
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Livvy Jean is a short story writer who specializes in experimental and hybrid forms. She has been previously published in The Washington Square Review, Cult Magazine, and elsewhere. A recent graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, she has won the 2023 and 2024 Five College Prose Award and the Class of 1940 Creative Writing Award. Livvy was a finalist and awarded an honorable mention for The Washington Square Review‘s New Voices award in Fiction. In Fall 2026, she is heading to NYU to begin her MFA in creative writing as a Goldwater Fellow.
Livvy teaches in TWC’s children’s and teen programs.
