Recently, the University in the High School Creative Writing class, taught by Dr. Hushmendy, was visited by RCS Alumna Sydney Jaypal. Ms. Jaypal, who graduated from RCS in 2018, recently self-published her book Butterfly Words under the pseudonym Zelda Black and came to speak with students about the pros and cons of self-publishing a book.
The book is a collection of poetry, sectioned out to follow different stages of emotion, tackling a variety of subjects. Ms. Jaypal discussed the whole process with students. It all started with an idea, she discussed what motivated her to write after that, and what kept her going during the long process. She also covered editing and finally publishing the final product. Since Ms. Jaypal self-published the book, there were a lot of extra steps and legwork to create the final product. She was able to talk about what would be different if an author utilized a publishing house instead, giving the students a look at the many options there are when it comes to publishing.
Along with discussing publishing with the students, she read some excerpts from her book and answered specific questions about her experience. “The more we can directly expose our students to individuals in the career they are learning about, the more real-world information we can share with them,” said Dr. Hushmendy. “With this presentation, students were able to speak with an RCS graduate who was able to do what we are learning about now. Truly an inspiration!”