LIFESTYLE
By: Lauren Burgoon
ROOSEVELT It doesn’t take much to send Anna Breslaw into a flurry of writing. A particularly good day or a day when nothing seems to go her way can send Anna into her room to whip out 10 pages on how she’s feeling or how a character in one of her many stories might react to the same situation.
"That’s not normal. I mean, what teenager comes home to write out 10 pages in a journal?" the often self-deprecating Hightstown High School senior asked. "But who cares? It’s what I have to do."
And with writing talent like hers, neither Anna nor anyone else should care that she doesn’t always act the part of a typical teenager. In fact, being different from her peers is what distinguishes Anna, 18, from other young writers. She’s become an observer of her friends and the world of teenagers and those observations often end up as the basis for many short stories and even sections of her unfinished novels.
Her frank and sometimes wry look at teenage life today recently earned the promising writer a spot at the prestigious National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts’ weeklong Arts Recognition and Talent Search (ARTS) program in Miami.
"It was amazing, so amazing," Anna said of the January program that gave her a chance to test-drive her material among fellow teen writers and professional mentors. "I’ve never been around kids who are so into what they do."
The Miami jaunt forced Anna to do something she’s long avoided share her work with others. There were group critiques where she’d have to read her stories before a large audience, a slightly terrifying prospect to someone who is reluctant to share her work with her teachers, friends or even parents. But she got through it and now Anna considers it an integral experience in her growth as a writer.
"Sarah’s eyes dart over Roger, the glance unnoticed, and back to her tattered copy of ‘The Metamorphosis.’ If she were a bug, she wouldn’t want to rejoin humanity either. She could crawl under his desk, up the metal bar, onto his shoe. Her rice-paper wings would flutter gently if she could land on the back of his neck, where his shaggy, stylish hair brushes the top of his collar, and hide behind it like a curtain."
An excerpt from Anna’s novel "Wayward Grace"
Anna has been a writer ever since she can remember and can recall writing down her observations about life at an early age. It’s a habit that has since blossomed into something of a fixation.
"I feel like a spy," she said.
She uses the information gathered each day to weave her tales about teenage life. It’s a much more complicated life than adults give kids credit for, according to Anna, and her goal is to "do justice" to teenagers through writing.
Anna’s observations and awareness of her own feelings frequently end up in her stories, many of which are examinations about the complex relationships that span the teenage world.
Her method can be seen in her novel "Wayward Grace," which helped win her entry into the ARTS program. The chapter she submitted described the novel’s characters, an assortment of high-schoolers who appear to a casual observer to fall into normal roles, but are really anything but the stereotypes they project.
Her subjects make sense to Anna, who said she believes that writers must write about what they know. In this case, she is fully immersed in the ins and outs of teenage minds today and so it’s natural in her mind to focus on that in her stories for now. She’s not sure what the future holds for her writing, but said it will probably evolve as she does so she’s always writing about what she knows.
"In my four years of high school, I have observed an overall feeling of accumulated isolation that can come from such tiny routines as walking down a hallway… "
From Anna’s application to the ARTS program.
As with any spy, some separation from her subjects is necessary. It’s a requirement that Anna knows all too well and she freely describes her feelings of isolation from her classmates and friends as she steps back to watch their daily interactions.
But to get the necessary depth for her writing, Anna recognizes that she must fight her feelings of isolation even as she realizes that it is the source of her inspiration.
"Some people get to the point where they’re anti-social, but I need to be able to be in a circle. I can’t get out of the loop too much because in my writing staying in the loop really matters," she said.
That’s what allows her writing to stay descriptive, but grounded and avoid the abstract, flowery prose used by other writers that she finds insufferable.
"Every writer has their own style. Abstract works for some people but I like to work with my own style by using pointed observations and direct language," Anna explained. "I like things that are darker. Just because you use humor doesn’t mean your writing is trite."
Still, despite her best efforts, the isolation from her peers is there. Words failed Anna when she tried to explain to friends what the ARTS program was about and what it felt like to be surrounded by other writers. She said she’s used to people not getting her passion given that no one in her family is particularly artsy and Hightstown High School doesn’t offer any creative writing classes to hone her writing skills.
"They had one creative writing class but I was the only one to sign up so it was canceled," she recalled.
Anna’s writing has largely remained a solitary pursuit. She scoffs at the idea of sharing her work with her teachers and never showed her parents any stories until she applied to go to Miami.
"People say you’re good, but you never believe them. It’s like when your parents compliment your writing they have to, they’re your parents," Anna said.
In fact, Anna wasn’t convinced she had any actual talent until she arrived in Miami. There, she said, successful writers were complimenting her and giving her advice. She really started believe in herself as a writer when poet David Groff encouraged her.
"He’s the first person I ever really heard say I was good and believed," Anna noted.
She’s taking that newfound confidence forward into her next step. But right now, Anna is unsure where she will end up at college next year she’s applied to several or what she will major in. She definitely wants to make writing her career if she can swing it financially and is considering different programs that will bring back the feelings she had in Miami, when she was ultra-excited about writing and surrounded by other people who felt the same way.
"You don’t remember much about being seven. It hardly comes up in conversation, since nobody knew you before you were twelve and first moved to this town, and as a result you hardly ever think about it. It’s like your life was waiting to start when you left the city, you were born the moment your parents paid double the worth of the Munroe Court split-level with no insulation so you wouldn’t get an inner-city education."
From Anna’s short story "New York: Two Shorts"
Anna may not have to wait until college to get a similar experience. She is up for consideration in the Presidential Scholars Program thanks to her experiences in Miami. The scholars program recognizes the most talented students in fields from writing to singing to acting. Of the 130 ARTS students, 50 are up for Presidential Scholars recognition. Twenty students will ultimately be selected and winning a spot essentially means that the student is one of the most promising young artists in the country.
Anna is hopeful she will secure a space and go to Washington, D.C., for another week of mentoring, critiquing and meeting with writing professionals.
Even if she doesn’t make it, the up-and-coming writer said she wouldn’t trade in the Miami experience for anything.
"We’ve all stayed in touch and still talk to each other about projects," she said, including some students in different fields, like a student director interested in making one of Anna’s screenplays into a movie.
For now, Anna is still writing away with no end in sight.
"I know other people feel the way I feel but I just need to get it out so badly," she said. "I’ll always turn to writing or I can’t be satisfied."

