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World-Building with Beatrice-Wedd
On a sunny afternoon near the end of April, I met with the student and aspiring writer Beatrice Wedd. We sat across from each other in a small classroom at Bard College — one with a window that opened sideways and through which birds were chirping — and she revealed herself to have a divided sense of purpose.
“There are pros and cons to both fields,” she said, eyebrows furrowed and chin in her hands. I’d asked whether she’d pick journalism or publishing, if given the green light for both. “But in terms of stress levels, I’m leaning towards book publication right now … or, I don’t know, teaching. I think I need to do them before I’ll really know.”
This was an impression I had after speaking with her for several weeks; Wedd was cautious. She needed to do things in order to know.
I asked Wedd what her style of writing was. Even though I’d read some of it before meeting her, I wanted her to characterize it herself.
“I write different types of stories,” she replied, “psychological cop dramas; a science fiction story about a person turning into a tree; one about a trauma victim who thinks she’s in the 1700’s; sometimes I have too many ideas at once. I definitely don’t feel constrained to a certain genre. I don’t think I can only write about romance because I’m a girl, or anything like that. But maybe I would’ve…
