 "Photo: Patrick Dupin / UCD Advocate")
As a creative writing professor, an editor for UC Denver’s Copper Nickel, an author, and a mother of a newborn, Jennifer Davis has multiple obligations that usually put “author” to the backburner by default.
Currently on maternity leave, Davis will resume teaching creative writing workshops in the spring. She still proceeds with other campus obligations, like her position as fiction editor on UCD’s literary magazine, Copper Nickel. Her writing, however, hasn’t proceeded as smoothly.
Sometimes the juxtaposition of writing with everyday duties lowers her morale as a fiction writer.
“To suddenly go off into this meditative state after you’ve screamed over whose Matchbox car belongs to whom…to suddenly sit down and say, ‘Oh, let’s build the Great American Novel’—it’s bullshit,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like it’s as important as it should be.”
If raising a family doesn’t completely blockade the writing process, her anxiety is a further obstacle to overcome.
“I almost throw up every time I sit down to write,” said Davis.
She critiques student work and submissions to Copper Nickel all day, so to write even more unpublished work herself daunts her, she said.
Her first novel is still under construction, however. To date, Davis has published two short story collections. Despite her venture into novel writing, she admits that short stories are her mode of choice.
“I’m a short story writer at heart. I love it,” she said. “I think the form is pure and lovely.”
When asked about her ultimate goal as a writer, she said, “My goal is what holds me back. I want to write something that’s deeply felt.
“So much of writing that’s lauded and celebrated now is clever and always has a nice ironic distance, and that drives me nuts,” she added. “Not that it’s easy to write or that it’s not smart, but to not risk sentiment frustrates me.”
She also spoke of her regard for UCD’s students. “I’m not just saying this because it’s going to be in a UCD publication, but my students here are as good as my [undergrad] students that I taught in the graduate program before I came here. They’re fiercely talented. It’s an absolute joy.”
Writing is reentering her life, now after the hiatus brought about by starting a family. “I’m starting to write again,” she said.
Be the first to comment on this article!