![]() ![]() Writing became his therapeutic escape, offering an avenue to process his emotions through the characters he made. ![]() When Michael Evans ’24 discovered at age thirteen that his father struggled with a gambling addiction and his parents were divorcing, he created stories to cope. “As long as I keep writing drafts-as long as I keep plugging away at it-it will eventually come together.” Michael Evans ’24: Control Freakz, Conspiracy Chronicles, and World Gone Mad “The first draft can be bad, the second draft can be bad, the third draft can be bad,” Austen says, and she faced occasional anxiety-induced paralysis. Austen encourages aspiring authors, regardless of age, to overcome self-doubt by simply writing and persevering. It took an additional two years before Black Magic finally saw publication. Starting in middle school, it involved two years of dedicated weekend writing, followed by two years of submitting to publishers. Shadow of the Pack has been Austen’s “crazy and extremely satisfying” undertaking for nearly half of her life. She also turned to childhood favorites such as Warriors, Wolves of the Beyond, and works by Jean Craighead George to inform the worlds of “epic fantasy” she built, steeped in intricate systems of magic, religion, and social hierarchy. The process required extensive research into wolf behavior, body language, and natural habits that drew from observations Austen made during hikes with her family in Portland, Oregon, and Yellowstone National Park. Austen wrote the two books of Shadow of the Pack together, with Black Magic published by speculative fiction publisher Month9Books last August and the second scheduled for an early 2024 release.
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