ABOUT

Middle school was my year of awakening. I was obsessed with Wattpad, and recently learned about just how cool the fantasy genre was for young adults. I started to buy fifty cent composition notebooks and fill them out with short stories and attempted novels, and that was when I started to dream of becoming a novelist. I loved the idea of building a world with words, and to share creative stories with countless others. I idolized writers like Sarah J. Maas and Victoria Aveyard, and hoped that I would one day have my own fan base to write stories to.

 

Shortly after, I found Girls Write Now. Or, in other terms, they found me. And wanted to build me, show me the world of writing, and all the countless possibilities. I was paired with such an impressive speechwriter named Sarah, and together we spent hours working on pieces that would be published in Girls Write Now’s annual anthology. I was published at the age of seventeen years old, and again at eighteen. My experiences at Girls Write Now will always stay with me.

 

Besides that program, I also spent some time shadowing journalists a Bloomberg News. How did I achieve that at fifteen? I always tell people that it was absolute luck. I fell in love with storytelling, especially with giving a voice to individuals who don’t know how to share their story/have a platform to do so. I was now a young girl who dreamed of being not only a novelist, but a journalist, as well.

 

Bloomberg News prepared me to be a news intern at City Limits Magazine, where I joined a team and published my first article. It was settled: my impact on the world will be made through writing.

 

Franklin & Marshall opened my eyes even more. I met so many new people, and writers like myself, who had different life plans in mind. I started to involve myself in technical writing, and again found a new passion: writing jobs at tech companies. Writing follows close behind changes of the world, and I love that being a writer comes with constantly learning, growing, and finding new topics to write about.

 

I decided to start Iroko when I had difficultly connecting to my school’s newspaper and other student publications. I wanted a different kind of freedom and direction, and that’s when I had the idea to create a blog where I can share my own experiences and opinions, along with the stories of other college students and individuals.

 

I want Iroko to be a place where readers can come and learn something new, if that’s a skill or an experience they never faced before themselves. I want them to also learn the possibilities of writing, and the possibilities of other majors stretching from STEM to Arts. I hope you’re able to stay awhile.