Dear Ryan,

It is my pleasure to accept you into the Stage & Screen genre of the Lesley University MFA Program in Creative Writing. Congratulations!

Your official acceptance letter will be sent via regular mail shortly. I would like to offer you a Merit scholarship of $7500, which would be paid over two years. 

I look forward to talking to you soon about your work and how the program can serve you— and it — best.

Michael Lewis’ Going Infinite.

Yossi Klein Halevi’s Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor. 

Emergency Care and Transportation of the Sick and Injured by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

These texts rest on my bed next to my lazing corgipoo, Suki. Occasionally, she paws at me for attention while I study the covers, trying to decide which author’s impact on my writing makes for the most compelling statement. Discussing Michael Lewis and his Sam Bankman-Fried character study would let me unpack how Isenberg Business School turned me into a staunch anti-capitalist. Opening with Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor would let me introduce my play Peace Talks early on, which I performed with my co-writer at British Columbia’s Victoria Fringe Festival. I could use Emergency Care and Transportation to relate my three years working as an Emergency Medical Technician. At the very least, I could tell the story of “the patient who fell from the damn sky.” 

But my eye catches that word profoundly in the prompt again and again. Synonyms: deeply, exceedingly, immensely. I realize that the varied nature of these three wholly different authors hurts each of their cases for my focus. To properly describe an author who has changed my writing profoundly, indeed comprehensively, there is only one person I can write about. He has influenced my art since before I took Intro to Finance, before I took the stage in Canada to perform what I learned in Israel, and before I knew how many ways there are to save a life. His name is Michael Tricca. I assume you haven’t heard of him yet, but I’d stake my shot at that Graduate Merit Scholarship that you will one day rather soon.

I met Michael when our two-year age difference felt cosmic in scale. I, the ancient theater camp counselor, asked if the freshman neophyte would mind if I joined him at his otherwise vacant lunch table. He looked like he needed a friend. I needed one too, but I was better at keeping appearances. Our connection grew swiftly as we whispered backstage about whether a nearly all-white cast should be performing Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights. Before I could believe it, he was out from under my wing. We were equals in everything but time elapsed on Earth.

He met me when I was an atheist and saw me through my first bipolar cycle, during which I became lost in religiosity and then snapped back. Six years later and finally stable, I was scared to tell my family that I had found faith yet again; I never felt some had fully “forgiven” me for my mental health crisis. So I told Michael first. He listened with acceptance and fascination.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge once described her views on fulfilling writing: “Find one friend you love and care about and write it for that person, to make that person laugh and make that person cry.” I am lucky enough to have found that person in someone who has found the same in me. When our screenwriting instructor suggested Story by Robert McKee and Into the Woods by John Yorke as supplemental reading, we divided and conquered. We sent texts back and forth as we read into the night, daring the other to imagine their “assigned” book could be as insightful as its absent twin. We traded notes, swapped books, then traded notes again. I relayed McKee’s description of the “substance” of story: the metaphysical gap between expectation and reality. Michael taught me the value of dividing one giant middle act into three smaller ones, to reveal a model for five-act structure hidden beneath three-. Last night, I sent him my latest thoughts on our fierce Yorke-McKee feud: “We are supposed to start writing at some point, right?”

Not knowing Michael Tricca at Westford Academy, I never find the confidence to create a writers’ circle at UMass Amherst. My co-writer and I do not meet there, do not visit Israel together, and we do not, the three of us, fly to Canada and produce Peace Talks. Sans Michael, I do not take either of the screenwriting classes at GrubStreet that affirm my passion for story craft in all mediums. I do not think to lean on structure when a stream of consciousness fails, nor do I remember to listen to my heart when my analyst’s brain burns rubber. I do not know who my audience is, and I am afraid to find out. Without Michael Tricca, I am still trying to pick an author who I can relate to my entire life – and I am left grasping for one worthy of profound influence.

My dad was never an author, but he was beloved by his community as a natural storyteller, his influence upon us all profound. He passed away in 2022 after a ten-year battle with brain cancer, the last three or so years a harrowing struggle to protect his weakened immune system from COVID-19 and the mouth-breathers who insisted we could all ignore it. After he passed, I did everything I could to prepare for my graduate studies: I waited. I worked on myself, and I discovered who I am outside of caring for a declining parent. I signed up for a 5K with friends to begin a new chapter in my fitness journey. My therapist was right, much to my chagrin: exercise works. As my mental health continued to improve, I cast aside one vice after another. Smoke breaks became extra walks with Suki. Drink money became money saved for school. Most importantly, four hours spent scrolling each day became four hours spent writing.

Growing up, regardless of class or grade, I was often the last student to hand in their exam. I remember the pride I saw in Dad’s face when I complained to him one brisk fall morning at the bus stop. “It’s because you want to get it right,” he said, beaming. Well, I do. It’s one of my weaknesses, but also one of my strengths, especially now that I have four hours to tinker each day. My most significant weakness is my uncertainty about writing characters of color as a white person. I have read what I have found on the topic, often at Michael’s suggestion: Writing the Other by Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward, the Writing with Color community on Tumblr. But books are no substitution for mentorship that demystifies, educates, and challenges. In applying to graduate school, I hope to engage in the dialogue that liberal education was created for, opening up opportunities for storytelling and representation in my work that would never have otherwise been. My goal in applying to the program is to take in everything I can and write a script that would shock me if I read it today. Graduate school is the only place I can find out exactly what I don’t know, I don’t know.