Unlike most novelists, Ray and Saylor are undergraduate students, learning more about the craft of writing and fiction in which they’ve both enjoyed early success. The two are among a sizeable number of USC students who are serious about developing their fiction writing talent.

“I think there is a renaissance of fiction writing on campus,” said Don Greiner, an English professor and associate provost for undergraduate affairs. “The arrival of Janette Turner Hospital and Fred Dings has created a cornerstone for the student writing community here.”

Undergraduate fiction flourished years ago when students contributed works to Crucible, the campus literary magazine. When that publication ended, there was no readily available outlet for student fiction, Greiner said.

“I’m encouraging students now to desktop publish their work, and many of them are actively seeking out some of us on the faculty because they know we’re willing to read and critique their works. In fact, I meet Sara, Brian, and other undergraduate writers for dinner at Preston every Tuesday so that we can discuss writing together.”

Saylor’s Here They All Unite began as her senior thesis at the Charleston County School of the Arts, but the story of six characters working in an Isle of Palms restaurant took on a larger life and became a novella.

“One of the drawbacks about my book is that people expect more of it than I think is there,” said Saylor, an Honors College freshman. “The binding makes it look like more than a high school project.”

Saylor’s modesty is sincere but not altogether necessary. While in high school, she won 10 writing awards, most from the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards program, including the prestigious Writing Portfolio Gold Award in her senior year. That award, considered by some to be the Pulitzer Prize for high school students, included a $3,500 scholarship that Saylor plans to use later for study abroad.

Ray, an Honors College English junior, turned a story about a freshman college student who stumbles upon a strange cult into a 20,000-word novella entitled Decaffeinated. He’s hard at work on another novel, Hurricane Sarah, about a woman who wants to be a storm chaser as a hurricane bears down on her coastal hometown. He plans to use an excerpt from that novel as part of the requisite for application to a graduate-level writing program.

“Dr. Greiner has been encouraging a lot of us to workshop together,” Ray said. “That’s been helpful. I know a lot of students who have published short stories in the Garnet & Black Quarterly.”

Novelist Janette Turner Hospital joined USC’s English department in 1999 and teaches mainly graduate students in fiction workshops. She has noticed an increasing number of undergraduates in her popular English 439, Caught in the Creative Act. Anonymous donors made possible a special luncheon this fall for the undergraduate credit students in the class to visit with Elizabeth George, author of a string of murder mysteries that examine class and gender issues in British society.

“These students are very keen to become writers, and they love the opportunity to rub shoulders with the high-profile visiting writers who come to campus,” she said.

Robert Lamb, an adjunct instructor who has taught fiction writing courses at USC for several years, has seen more than a few talented undergraduate writers.

“In each class, I always have at least one or two students with writing talent, but this semester the number is abnormally high, maybe seven or eight, possibly more, of an enrollment of 30,” Lamb said. “And the class definitely seems more interested in story-telling as an art form. Good thing I'm publishing a novel next year. You need bona fides to teach these students.”

11/03