From the 3/3-3/16 issue:
Marinette Campus English Literature & Writing Lecturer
Tracy Fernandez Rysavy teaches English at the Marinette Campus. While she mostly taught composition her first year, this year, she moved to literature and creative writing. She’s also The Driftwood’s advisor and teaches the Practicum in Literary Publishing class behind this newsletter and the 2020 Northern Lights Literary & Arts Journal.
Who are you? Where are you from?
I teach literature, creative writing, and the occasional composition class here at the Marinette Campus. While I grew up two hours south of Marinette in Random Lake, WI, I’ve lived all over the U.S. and even in Seoul, Korea.
What brought you to UW-Green Bay, Marinette Campus?
My original career goal was to teach college English, but I married a Naval officer who moved us around every two years, so I became a nonprofit magazine editor-in-chief on a telecommuting basis and taught creative writing workshops and college writing on the side every once in a while for fun. When my husband retired from the Navy, we settled here, and when a spot opened up on campus, I knew I’d love to go back to teaching full time.
What are your plans for Northern Lights Literary & Arts Journal?
I’m the faculty advisor for the campus Creative Writing Club, and last year, we published Northern Lights as a club project. (The journal has a long history on the Marinette campus, but it hadn’t been published since 2015.) The English department chair liked it and asked me to make it the centerpiece of a Practicum in Literary Publishing class, so this year, that class will be creating and publishing the journal. (And we don’t even have to have a bake sale to drum up money to print it!) While we’re waiting for submissions to roll in, that class created The Driftwood e-newsletter. I’m pretty proud of their work and look forward to seeing what they do with Northern Lights. (Please submit your work to Northern Lights by March 27th!)
What is the most challenging part of creating a good publication piece?
For me, it’s facing the blank page. To paraphrase an apocryphal quote from Dorothy Parker, my favorite part of writing is “having written.” Once I’ve blasted out a rough draft (which I do while figuratively holding my nose and trying not to worry about being perfect), it’s so much easier for me to go back and edit or fix things. I love the part where I get to tweak and polish something that’s already in existence.
How would you represent your writing and publishing to others?
During my 20-year career as a journalist, I published hundreds of articles in magazines and have been in a couple of nonfiction anthologies. In addition, I’ve published eight romantic suspense novels with Harlequin and Kensington/Zebra, though I hit pause on fiction writing when my daughters were born. Honestly, though, my favorite part about creative writing is teaching it!
When did you first decide on becoming an English Professor?
Fresh out of grad school, but life had other plans until now. So far, I really love my mid-life career switch!
If you were a crayon, what color would you be and why?
Red. It’s my favorite color, and it doesn’t make me look like I have ebola when I wear it (like every pastel in existence). As it’s known as an emotional color, I’ll also say that it fits me since I tend to be rather passionate about the things I love, like my family, really good books, and the Oxford comma.
—Interview by Breanne Bedgood, Profiles Editor &
Driftwood Social Media Coordinator