Greetings to the FLARE blog from the newest Keuka College Field Period® student. My
name is Cassian – though I usually go by Cas – and while I was born in Binghamton and go to
school at Keuka, I’ve lived most of my life, and continue to live, in Pennsylvania in what is
actually the only “town” in the state, Bloomsburg. Though I really would love to be an author in
the future, I am currently an Art and Design major with a double minor in Religious
studies and Writing – although I did come into Keuka College as a Writing and Communications
major.
Due to my hopes to eventually be an author, there’s definitely a lot I’m hoping to learn
from this Field Period®. Currently living in a small(ish) town not adjacent to any major metropolitan
area, the idea of becoming an author can seem like a daunting and impossible dream. Though
regardless of location, it would likely feel that way anyway considering the often condescending
and rarely encouraging response you get from people when you tell them you want to go into
any creative field.
I hope that my opportunity with FLARE will give me a window into what exactly an
author does in a real and familiar context. Hopefully through this opportunity I can garner a
better understanding of how an author can connect with and represent their community through
their writing and publishing of their work, and how one can actually become an author in the first
place, which at this point is to me a nebulous and impenetrable process. I have also never
written for a blog before, so this is an entirely new realm I am stepping into with less than
complete confidence in my ability to step into it.
I’ll also be the one doing design work for event flyers over the course of this field period,
so keep an eye out for those (unless they turn out terrible, in which case, I have no idea who
made them but it definitely wasn’t me)!