Christopher Michael Shonafelt

Ever since I was a kid, I have been drawn to communicating through the written word. The subjectivity of a piece of writing, the fact that it is completed by the experiences and imagination of the reader, gives the written word a power, an intimacy, and a democratic or communal sense that other art forms do not have. Even as movies and television have replaced the written story as the western world’s great mode of cultural expression, even as print media undergoes radical changes in the digital age, I feel that writing not only will stay relevant, but become more important than ever. The potential for radical and deep communication with another, even across miles of space or decades of time, makes the written word special, an antidote for the alienation and foggy solipsistic unreality that are often the side effects of our new technological expedients for communication. I feel that millennials, the first generation to be shaped by these technologies, have been set adrift in a world that has shifted perhaps a little too quickly and crudely from the world their parents knew by terrorism, recession, and media, and forced to, for better or worse, reevaluate nearly every value and expectation they’ve been taught. In this atmosphere, I’ve been working as a tutor and going to school to earn an English degree so that I can hone my ability to express my thoughts, dreams, and perceptions with others, as many other humans, both friends & legends, have shared their worlds with me. Hopefully, once I finish school, I can use my degree to earn a living in editing & publishing while continuing to pursue my lifelong love affair with sharing stories. My particular interests are fiction, particularly scifi and magical realism, as well as creative nonfiction. I chose to apply for a position at Odyssey because I admire its ethos of giving my generation a voice through its nontraditional approach to media. I also feel it could provide me with a powerful motivator to keep writing & sharing my ideas, a chance to gain familiarity with journalism, an opportunity to encounter and collaborate with other creators, and, hopefully, a voice to contribute in any way I can to the huge online conversation about where we should go and what we should value as humanity finds its footing in this strange new century.