Buzzcut

A Conversation with the Up & Coming

In July, Trace Fossils’ editor-in-chief, Jessie Leitzel, sat down with the 2025 Buzzcut interviewees, Ruby Varallo and Lillian Colette Hughes, to discuss their debut books—Varallo’s collection Receipts, whose surrealist flash fiction, essays and poems highlight the profundity in ordinary life, and Hughes’s novel Bellflower’s Bloom, in which a young girl races the clock in a town where nothing ever stays dead. Both books were published this past May.

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excerpt from Bellflower’s Bloom

The lamplight was weak, so it took a long deliberation before she pressed the needle into the cape, finalized the first stitch. She threaded black thread through the buck’s back, pulling the sutures tight where the most damage had been done, keeping her movements precise the way her father had taught her. Gradually, the pelt morphed from tatters to a delicate patchwork. It no longer looked animated, no longer carried the suggestion of life. The buck had become nothing more than a posed carcass, somehow seemed deader now than when its head had been lolling into the bed of Beck’s pickup, and Maira knew as much. Still, she worked. The night grew cold and her father grew quiet and still she worked, guiding the thread through the hide she’d torn, proving to an empty room that it wasn’t too wounded to be fixed.

Immersed in a familiar concentration, she didn’t realize half the room had gone dark until she next looked up. The flickering fluorescent beam had finally reached the end of its misbehavior. It had spent its final moments mimicking the cicada buzz of the woods, flashed a final flare over the rainwater-pooled floor, and promptly fizzled out. 

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Jessie

Tell me about the summer you started writing your books. Did you know what you were going to write going into the season?

Lillian

I’ve had my idea since late tenth grade, so I've been walking around with the concept for a while—of a girl who thought she was dead—but I didn't know anything past that.

The summer before thesis, I was working at a vet clinic, which was full-time, and so I would think about the planning for Bellflower’s Bloom in the back of my head as I was working there. If I got an idea, I would sneak off to the back room, type it down, and then go back to work. I got a bunch of ideas through that and then, at the end of summer, I started compiling those ideas into a plot. I thought it would take me a week, and soon I realized it would take a lot longer. I literally locked myself in my room for two weeks and did nothing but plan my book from start to finish. By the end of that, I had an outline.

Ruby

All I knew was I wanted to do a collection and I wanted it to be a little surreal. I had started playing with surrealism the year before, and I had really enjoyed that; it was a shift in my writing that I hadn't expected. I knew I wanted to continue going with that, but I didn’t know in which way. 

But I think I was, at the same time, collecting inspiration without knowing it—I went to Spain that summer, it was an incredible trip, and all throughout it I was writing down little things I would see, little people I would notice, some of which later bloomed into the stories that are in the book.

Jessie

You knew you wanted to do a collection flat-out?

Ruby

I did, yeah. I’ve always really liked short stories and poems, and so I knew I wanted it to be a collection.

Jessie

Do you think the process of creating short fiction feels better?

Ruby

I think so. And I like the shorter form. I like a small window into a character's life rather than spending a lot of time on that life, just because I think that's the way I observe the world—I look at fragments of strangers' lives, and that's what I write down; that's what I take as my inspiration. It makes the most sense then. It feels like I’m emulating real life when what I’m writing is a little glimpse and not the full picture of a long, long story. 

Jessie

What was the first story you ended up writing? 

Ruby

The first one that I wrote was “The Train,” the one that's published in Trace Fossils. That one solidified the kind of style I wanted to go for for the rest of the book—the surrealist style—because I really enjoyed writing that one; it came to me somewhat naturally, which isn't normal for me. Usually, I am a very slow writer. I work through pieces, and it's difficult to keep momentum going. But that one, I just sat down and wrote, and I knew that was what I wanted to feel for the rest of it. 

Jessie

While you, Ruby, are primarily surrealist, you both have such “out of the ordinary” elements to your books. Things that are a little bit strange, that wouldn't happen normally. Take your novel, Lillian, whose protagonist is, quite literally, a dead girl who is very much alive. Would you consider Bellflower surreal?

Lillian

I knew I definitely wanted to play with surrealism. I'm getting really into other-worldly descriptions and pushing that imagery, but as far as labeling it something, I was just kind of going with it. 

Jessie

One of my favorite elements of Bellflower’s Bloom is how lovely its pacing is. In the face of the challenge of writing a 400-page novel in under ten months, the pacing remained self-assured and steady, but it also has a barreling tactic that keeps the narrative moving forward so that when we did get to action scenes and eventually the end, the arrival was earned. I'm wondering whether anything ended up surprising you in your plot, and if anything came about that wasn't in your original plot map.

Lillian

Progressing through my other books, I've slowly moved from improvising to having plot maps. So by the time I got to Bellflower, I knew that I very much wanted to have that rigid plot map—not in a sense where it couldn't be changed, but I wanted to know where I was going. And so, when I was in my room for those two weeks trying to plan it out, I got out a bunch of sticky notes and I wrote down a bunch of scene names, and I had, like, a whole area of my wall where I would set things up and then rearrange them. And so most of the work—adding things, rearranging things—because I could see the whole book there, actually took place before the book even happened.

I did leave the ending two chapters ambiguous, though, just because I didn't know where exactly I was going for those. I had a rough idea, but I wanted to experience the book first so I would know whether it would be the right conclusion to arrive at, instead of outlining it and then having to stick to that rigid point. Everything else was fixed except for those chapters, which I outlined roughly right before I wrote them. It took me a while, to be honest, but I just wanted to have a way to tie everything up.

Of course, some things came up while I was writing that weren’t in the outline. I like to think I made it so that, at the end, I was trying to see what came up, and could eventually tie them together. 

Jessie

May I ask what kinds of things arrived? Or why, when they came up, you were certain they needed to be in the book?

Lillian

There was one moment—I remember this now—when I was writing in one of my study hall classes, and I realized that there was such a thin line between what Maira thought was real and what was actually happening that it was not only getting hard for the reader to discern, but it was hard for me to discern as the writer. This was right in the plot when the rot from the rail yard was starting to spread, so it was a good point where it hadn't gotten too deep yet, where I could still kind of get back on track. But it was really messy, and I wanted to fix it, so I ended up having to sit down and state clearly that her being dead was part of a mental block, and that it was an intentional choice to make her perspective—and therefore the way the story was being told to the reader—confusing. But the things that were happening, like the animals and the corruption, they were actually happening, and they had to be happening, because otherwise there were no stakes. If it was all in her head, there wouldn't be anything to be afraid of.

Jessie

Is there a section of the book you were unsure how to write around that forced you to write out-of-sequence? Or did the process move completely linearly? 

Lillian

Completely linearly, but some parts definitely took longer than others. I'm also a very slow writer; I have to think about every sentence individually and then construct them with the words I want to use, and if they’re not the right words, sound-wise or in that they don’t convey what I want it to, I have to think of a synonym, and I have to play with sentence structure, asking myself things like, do I want, like, a compound sentence? and I have to do that every sentence. So you can imagine that it takes a while.

Jessie

That’s hilarious because it doesn't at all come across in your book. The way your sentences move—it feels very natural. They build on each other.

Lillian

It is natural in my head, but it takes a while to come to the page. I think subconsciously I know where I'm going, but I have to realize that in a certain way—I know when it feels right, and I know when it flows right, and I know when a sentence is right—but often the first time I think of a sentence it isn't the sentence it’ll actually be.

The part that took me the longest was definitely the end chapters. It was especially that last scene, the very last one in the book. I sat there and stared at my computer, putting down a sentence every five minutes. The process was so slow. 

Jessie

Why do you think so? 

Lillian

It was because I knew it was ending. There was a lot of pressure to make it feel right, to get it how I wanted it to be. I'm very perfectionistic as well with how I write; I know some people—and I admire this a lot—some people can get a whole lot out, and then they go back and revise. I personally don't like revising very much, so I like to have it the way I want it, or at least close to that, the first time I do it. So I really just sat there trying to get those sentences as perfect as I could. 

Jessie

Did you have time for revisions once you hit the end? Or were you like, “no, okay, we publish!”

Lillian

I feel like the second one. I got done… I want to say it was in early March? And so I had maybe a month to revise and to figure out how to publish and format, which was a whole other process. But yeah, with the length of the book, I wasn't able to do a whole lot in terms of revision. I read through the whole thing, but I couldn’t touch most of it. That's where I was glad that I was kind of perfectionistic the first run, and that I had that plot outline: in the grand scheme of things, my work is mostly how I wanted it to be. 

Jessie

It all seems one spine together…you can tell it's proofread, in a really lovely way that showcases the story is so structurally sound to begin with. How was the process different for you, Ruby? Did you revise?

Ruby

I did revise. I revised because I was less meticulous off the front end. I think I let myself be a little messy the first time around, because I personally would go crazy if I dissected every sentence. I had to step away from the constraints of the first draft and just let it be on the paper. And then I definitely went back and revised. I think something I struggled with a lot was losing momentum throughout a piece. Once the original fun that a zany idea held at the beginning wore off, I wanted to find a way to employ some real heart into the character. That's something I like about shorter-form stories: it's harder to lose that momentum. The first two or three pages of writing a story typically comes pretty easy to me, because I can have fun with whatever silly little idea I have. I can make a fun character who's a little bit odd; I’m allowed to riff, you could say. Then, once that original rush wears off, and it's time to have some genuine emotion… I think that's both the hardest and the most rewarding part: figuring out how to ground this fun idea in something human.

Jessie

Well, I find that's where the emotion comes from. Part of the reason why your pieces are so powerful is because you can tell everything is set up with a unique detail or unique sentence about a given character, and it grabs the reader immediately. But then once you get to the beating heart part of the piece, you have this very specific and well thought out background. It’s extremely powerful; it makes your characters come off the page. Do you find your pieces start with an image or with an idea of plot or character? 

Ruby

Definitely a character, I would say. Character is usually the first inkling of an idea I’ll have: “let me think of someone and develop the way they think,” and then everything else follows after that, like the way they behave and what happens in the plot.

Jessie

What's your favorite character in Receipts? Do you have one?

Ruby

The first one that comes to mind is John, who's the ping pong guy. 

Jessie

I was thinking about that one!

Ruby

That one was just so fun to write. And the idea for it came out of absolutely nothing. I was just walking around and I saw a ping pong table in front of a restaurant, and I thought “that’s kind of an odd place to have a ping pong table,” and no one was using it. I thought someone should use it. And then I thought, “hmm…I wonder who would use that?” (laughter). And then I thought, “I guess someone who wants a friend.” And it all kind of rolled from that.

I think I write a lot about loneliness, and people seeking connection. That's the root of most of my characters. And so I feel as though usually that's the beginning; that, as a character, they want to find this connection and something is in their way. The question that arises is, then, how they’re going to work through it.

Jessie

Receipts is mostly surrealist flash fiction pieces, but your final piece in here, “Return,” is very personal. Tell me about “Return,” and specifically, why you wanted us to leave the book with it. 

Ruby

So I actually wrote “Return” in ninth grade.

Jessie

Seriously?!

Ruby

—yes! And that was probably my first time experimenting with surrealism. The prose poem is what introduced me to surrealism at all. Before that my writing was very objective. The way I wrote in middle school is entirely different from the way I write now; I didn't realize you could experiment so much within writing, I thought it had to follow a certain structure. “Return” was either my first or second prose poem, and certainly my first time experiencing or experimenting with surrealism. It had me learning you could push the boundaries of reality. And that one, like “The Train,” came very naturally to me. I really love receipts, like, the item receipts. I collect receipts in real life. I just think they're so fun. You get a little list of everything you've gotten and there's a little story behind them. That's why I collect mine—if I go out to a restaurant with friends, I keep the receipt, and then I can remember the story based on the receipt and all that. And so I think that's where the conceit of that poem came from, and I wanted to end on it because it’s where I got the idea for the book title. I was looking back through all my old poems, back when I was weighing the ones I wanted to include in the collection, and “Return” stood out to me because of its motif. I didn't have a title at that point; when I read that one, it felt right to call the book Receipts because I think it's indicative of the stories in the book: short little proofs that something has happened or that some exchange has happened.

Jessie

So it was chronologically the first piece you ever wrote. Leaving off where you began is such an interesting way to organize art. It reminds me of the pantoum poems we learned about; how you begin and end with the same line and, somehow, it means something completely new. I loved “Return” for that reason.

Am I correct in saying that “The Ticket” is nonfiction as well? 

Ruby

Correct, yes. That is the only nonfiction one—the only entirely nonfiction one. I would say all of them are a little bit nonfiction because they're based off of real observations from my childhood. But that is the only one that is in totality nonfiction. I didn't add or exaggerate any detail in that one, honestly because I didn't feel I had to. Sometimes people stumble into your life and all I can think is, “thank you, because you're giving me so much to write about.” The woman in that essay did most of the work for me, just by her nature and by the way that she was. As she was talking—that's when I knew, as she was talking—I was like, “I am writing this down, I will be using this.” Because I love when people are like that. I love when people are so naturally surreal that I’m allowed to forgo the work of a fiction writer and instead report life as it happens.

Jessie

Bouncing off what you just said about how you see your stories—documenting exchanges that have happened—I was really touched by “The Ticket” and “The Concert.” Both of those stories hinge on the speaker's relationship with strangers, whether that be an actual stranger, like at the New York play in “The Ticket,” or someone who's become a stranger as it was in “The Concert.” Why do you think strangers appear so frequently in your book? What do you think they gift to what's being written? 

Ruby

I would say my affinity towards strangers comes from my love of observation. I like to be on the outside looking into someone else. I'm not stopping strangers on the street, like, “tell me something about your life!” so I like when strangers offer it up to me. Take, for instance, the other day, when I was at work. I work in an ice cream store, and we make little waffle cones, and they make the whole place smell really good. This woman came in and she started talking to me, and she's like, it smells so good in here. It reminds me of when my dad used to make waffles every Sunday morning. I was like—hello? I don't even know your name, but I know this deep, deep detail about you. That's what I love about connecting with strangers so much: you don't have to know everything about them. You observe one thing, or are able to hear one thing, and you can add your own story onto it. And that's what I did.

Jessie

Would you consider yourself a listener? Both of you?

Ruby

Definitely. Absolutely.

Lillian

Yes.

Jessie

Do you think it's because of writing, or do you think you would have been that way even if you hadn’t started writing? 

Ruby

I think I would have been that way without writing. I've always been big on letting other people do the talking, and writing was my way of coming into my own, of doing something with all the things that I've listened to and heard and recorded throughout my life. So I do think it would have happened regardless. But I do believe writing helps speed up that process of being able to translate what I've listened to into an actual, tangible thing. 

Lillian

I think I would have ended up like that if I hadn't written. I see writing as a way for me to deal with it, I guess. There are a lot of good things about being a listener. You learn a lot, and you're going to observe a lot and be present in a lot of situations, but at the same time, it can be kind of lonely as well. And so I think that having a character like Maira… she's very much on the outskirts all the time, and she observes the world in her own way as a separate part from the rest of the town, which is why having Sable and Bonnie was so shocking to her: they, as a group, were getting involved in activities that she had never actually been involved in, but that she'd only ever seen. Having Maira as my protagonist was a way to explore that instinctual condition of listening rather than engaging. 

Jessie

Was that a subconscious move, or was that something you wanted to speak on directly? 

Lillian

It wasn't the “main thing” I wanted to talk about, but it definitely was something I wanted to explore. And also—I wanted to have a character so I could see how she would deal with it. I guess because I had that… I don't know. I know how I deal with it, of course, and how I listen, but I wanted to know, if I put that loneliness on a character that wasn't entirely myself, how she would go about it. 

Jessie

I'm thinking about that technique through the lens of nonfiction. Did you ever write an essay about loneliness?

Lillian

Yeah, I wrote one in eleventh grade. We were doing lyric essays, and so I wrote one about a similar thing. I guess I did want to explore the topic a little more, but that was also when I got started with surrealism as well, so I think I owe a lot to that essay specifically. 

Jessie

Did you put surrealism intentionally in your novel, or was the intention more akin to “the unreal”? 

Lillian

I think I intentionally wanted to lean into it. I had been beforehand too—in eleventh grade we were doing… oh my gosh, the three stories we had to connect through the setting or something or other. All those stories I did with Maira, Sable, and Bonnie, and that's how I actually got those ideas, because I did one for each protagonist. They were character studies, essentially. 

Jessie

Have their characters changed since then?

Lillian

In some ways—they’ve gotten more developed. I found a concept for them that I stuck with. For Bonnie, at the time, I didn't really know her origin or anything backstory-wise; I only knew she was leaving. She developed later. But as for Maira and Sable’s dynamic, those three stories helped me figure out a lot, but they also helped me figure out whether I wanted to stick with surrealism. 

Jessie

Ah, were those three stories from their perspective?

Lillian

Yes! The first one I wrote was actually Sable’s, and the last one I wrote was Maira’s. I started with him. I don't think he was ever meant to be the main character, but I wanted to learn more about my main character through someone else. Because she is a listener, she's kind of an outsider in her own town, in her own world, even. Since she is an outsider to so many people, I wanted to see how those people would perceive her, because it is such a big part of her: being seen by other people but not being known. 

Jessie

Throughout the book we see everything through Maira’s eyes, and then, on certain occasions, your voice as the author is incredibly present. There were times when I’d read dialogue you’d written under Sable and I’d say to myself, “No, this isn’t Sable, this is Lillian.” (laughter)

When do you guys feel the strongest need to write? Or maybe, if you do ever feel like you need to get something down on a page, did the cause of those moments change while you were writing your books?

Ruby

I'm not a very immediate writer. I don't usually jot down an idea or a detail and then write about it that same day, or even that same week. Usually I'll have an idea, write it down, and then it just sits there for a while. I couldn't really tell you why I'm like that. I just feel like it needs some time to sit, and then I'll act on it. Sometimes, I'll have an idea that'll sit in my notes app for a year or more, and then suddenly I'll be scrolling through, thinking, Hmm, there’s something I could do with that. And I pull it out. It's like brushing the dust off of it. 

Take the ping pong table: I wrote that image down and I left it, didn't touch it for months, and then when I couldn't think of things to write about—I was facing that classic writer's block situation, looking through my ideas—then I started to think about the humanity of an empty ping pong table. Once I can start to think of a character and their genuine human emotion, then I start to feel connected to the idea, and that's when the story begins for me, and therefore when I can feel like I can write it. But sometimes it does take forever to find that emotional connection. Sometimes it doesn't happen at all. So many of the things I have in my little list I'll probably never use, and that's okay with me. I’ve realized some of them might simply be fun to look back on, and they don’t have to become a full story.

Jessie

Is there any piece or detail that you wanted to put in your books that ended up not being there? 

Ruby

There are certainly the beginnings of pieces that didn't make it in, but it's just because I'm not very good at sticking it through if I don't feel the story at the beginning. I’ll usually step away from it. If something comes back to me, then I'll return to it. But that's rare, usually; I really need to feel it at the beginning to keep it going. And so I'm sure there are a million starts where I tried to write a story and then had that realization I was talking about earlier—about how some things should stay observations, and not a real, fully fleshed out story. I think most things made it in, quite honestly, because I was really reaching for some pages. Once those deadlines crept past me, I was not up to my quota, so I was definitely picking for any pages that I could that I felt fit the vibe of the book.

Jessie

One day, instead of writing our books, we all took a pause and talked about the wind for ninety minutes. It was a very stupid conversation. I don't remember why we were talking about it. But what we got from it was that there are forces, invisible movements at work even though we can’t see them. And so I'm wondering what that something is in your books. Tell me about an element either that you know is in your writing but the audience doesn't or that you didn't get the chance to fully write about?

Lillian

At least one of the things is this: my biggest fear is death. Writing about it was a way to process it, but also to get closer to it and understand it better through the context of multiple perspectives: my own and also Maira’s, and then also the town of Rustgill. And not just her thinking, but also her job as a taxidermist, where she's around so much death. I think it helped her to explore it as something other than this scary “end-all be-all.” Taxidermy is an endeavor of respect, and I tried to contrast that with David Beck’s character, because hunting is very much not about that for him. In his mind, it’s about feeling like he’s strong and powerful and better than these animals. But for Maira, at least in her work, there's a lot of care that goes into preserving an animal and making sure that animal is a monument to how it would have been when it was alive. You wouldn't pay that much attention to something you didn't care about. Having her be so close to death was, in a way, a way for me to also spend more time with the idea. 

Jessie

Death in your book is so alive, which is interesting if your goal was to explore the fear itself. You had a tendency to make it so that, even though Maira’s dead, she is still thinking about her death and its fallout. What do you think it is about death that drew you to it on the page?

Lillian

Definitely the concept of not being able to think or experience anymore. Maira still thinks, speaks, is able to see things. And I guess, yeah—I want to be able to see things, think about things. I'm the kind of person who's in my own head a lot. And so the idea that I wouldn't be able to do that anymore… It freaks me out.

Ruby

I think something that's in mind a lot—maybe it does come across, but I don't think it's as obvious—is the parts of my writing that are me. I’ve spent a lot of time so far talking about observing others, strangers, and using what I see around me, and all of that as the main inspiration. But there are a couple occasions where the idea really came from a more introspective place; particularly, “The Assignment” and “The Month of the Inchworms,” and whenever there's a protagonist that's a younger girl, there's a lot of me that I put into it. I'm glad you started talking about fear of death, because that's what “The Assignment” is all about, and that's something I've very, very much felt. Especially in my childhood, I was so anxious about death. It was one of the main things I thought about, and so looking back on that and thinking about it, that is what prompted “The Assignment.” I felt like no one could give me a solid answer about it—fair enough, because there isn't really a solid answer about it for them to give—but it definitely left me frustrated. I would think, Why can't someone make me feel better about this? I feel so anxious about this all the time and I feel as though there's no concrete solution that anyone has provided for me to stop feeling this way. And so I think the dad's character comes from that frustration with adults in my life at the time, obviously, genuinely caring for me and wanting for me to not feel that way. But nothing really worked. That frustration didn't dissipate until I got much older.

Jessie

And the frustration, it’s so prevalent in Receipts. It doesn't feel like a fear as much as it is the admission of no one's giving me an answer. Which is so resonant in so many ways—every single person has that in childhood, right? 

Because we're talking about characters so much, one of my favorite things about Bellflower’s Bloom, Lillian, is how you characterize place. The rural backwoods of Rustgill become a living, breathing character in its own right. At times, it seems more of a character than the protagonist themselves. You even end all your chapters with setting: you pull us away from the action of the present, and you settle us once again into “what is coming for them” and how that is intrinsically tied to the land that they are occupying. Why do you think it was necessary for the story to characterize the woods so strongly?

Lillian

In the beginning, it wasn’t something I knew I was doing. But as I went on, I realized how important it was, and I think it was also important to Maira as an observer—to have a place that cannot interact with her in the way that people can. In that way, she's a lot more comfortable with it, and she spends a lot more time there. For the place, it was necessary for it to feel like it was reflecting the state of the people who live there. Rustgill is very much falling apart… it's just not doing great. It also reflects how Maira sees the town’s inhabitants as well, because she's so convinced that everyone is isolated and resentful of her as well as each other, and that the human condition is being isolated and not connecting with people. I think that if it was a different character experiencing the book, Rustgill might have looked a lot different. I also really wanted to explore the railyard in Bellflower’s Bloom as a kind of halfway point between nature and the wilderness and also between human connection and people having been there before.

Jessie

Nature and the wilderness. Are they two separate things? 

Lillian

I think that people often like to digest nature as it is convenient to them. I was on a plane recently, and I like to look down and see the orientation and the shapes of trees, because there are some spaces where the trees are very organically shaped, and there are some spaces—actually, more often than not—where they're either very rectangular or there’s a very solid edge of the tree line where you can tell it's been shaped by people. I think that people like to enjoy nature as much as they can control it. 

Jessie

I’m thinking of your career in falconry, and specifically the picture online with you and the hawk—you display it as a part of who you are. Did that influence your book at all?

Lillian

I think so. Especially with falconry and being around hawks and volunteering at the Center for Birds of Prey—there's something about hawks that make them unable to be tamed. It’s the most common misconception about hawking. People ask me this all the time when I'm doing programs: how do you tame them? or how do you domesticate them? and the answer is always that we don't, because you can't tame a hawk. There's something about them that's a lot different from cats and dogs: they're always going to be wild animals. For a hawk, you have to work to earn their respect more than you can ever break their spirit or domesticate them. It's a two-way street. And so I think that ties back to people wanting to be able to control things. I just really love that angle: respecting a creature for what it is, rather than trying to control it. 

Jessie

I want to know more generally, now that you’ve finished your first book, what you think you're going to write next? If you haven't been thinking about it, why?

Ruby

Writing has been slow for me this summer, I will say. I exerted so much energy towards the latter half of our senior thesis that by the time that thing was published, I was like, I'm not gonna write again for a hot second. I needed a moment to look around, to have and note more ideas for later.

But I think college is a huge factor for me. Knowing that I'll be writing in college and that I'll be in workshop settings again with people who I haven't known for seven years is an interesting thing to grapple with. I've gotten so used to a certain routine with writing, of being at school, having the same three teachers in the same class, from 6th to 12th grade—I've gotten into a pattern with writing. I knew what to expect. I understand my style now, I guess you could say, or the way that I tend to write, and I think that's something Receipts helped me discover, but having the routine of the past seven years being broken and starting into something new in college… It's something that scares me, and I’m definitely intimidated by it, but it also really excites me to be exposed to new writers and to see how my writing will bounce off of theirs. 

Lillian

I wrote a short story, and that's kind of it. Also about hawks, surprise! But I feel like there's something in me that has to write. When I was little, I would write stories and such. My parents would ask me, like, why do you write? And I would always go, because I have to, which is such a weird answer, but I’ve always felt like there was something that I needed to say, even if I didn't have an idea actively. I feel the most comfortable when I'm in the middle of a project or in the middle of the story. Just in life, it's something to come back to, and it's something that I have control over, especially when life is a little much or a little hectic, it's nice to have an environment where I can explore my own thoughts, but also explore other things that I can make. I think I will always write, even if I don't really know what it is I’m writing at the moment. 

Jessie

You called writing a solitary craft in Bellflower’s acknowledgements, which I really like; you then immediately follow that this undertaking, these books, relied on others. Through the School of the Arts, we all have the very unique experience of watching each other grow. You both saw each other, for seven years, becoming the writers you are right now. I want to know what studying writing together for so long has given you, and also what it was like to be workshopping each other's books into what they are now. 

Ruby

The impact was huge. I credit so much of the way my book turned out to those workshops. Since I was in the program since sixth grade, I was able to watch people’s writing develop since they were eleven to eighteen. It’s truly such a unique experience, like you said, and something I would never take for granted. I would say, too, that workshops helped so much with my book because a lot of the comments I would get on my rough drafts were like, Oh, this character is cool, but what do you mean? What is the heart of this? For other people to be able to address that helped me to flesh out my ideas beyond the original, surprising nature.

On a broader note, being able to see so many different styles of writing. Everyone in our class had such distinct styles. You could tell whose someone's story was without a name on it; you could read a piece and know on instinct, oh, that's so and so. We were a cohort of distinct voices. That was an amazing thing to see, especially in the development of the books, the way they would play with that even when we got to the point of being used to our cohort’s writing. I was still surprised all the time in workshops when people presented a new story or an essay, how you could tell it was them but that they were also discovering things within their own craft. Seeing that happen inspired me to push beyond my own expectations for myself. 

Lillian

Sort of what Ruby said about watching people grow and develop their own styles, it was very motivational. When I entered the program, I entered in ninth grade, so I was about three years late to the party. Before SOA, I was, of course, still writing, but I hadn't been exposed to other writers my age. When I got into SOA and I started seeing all these other works from really talented people, it was kind of discouraging at first, because I realized how good everyone was. My first thought was There's no way I can get through this. I remember we were writing poetry at first, and I had only ever read poetry in school; of course, in school we read people who have been dead for 200 years, and they all rhymed, and so naturally, my first poem rhymed and no one else’s did. I felt like a fraud. It was definitely rough at first, and for a little while, I was convinced I didn't belong there. I was trying to catch up to everyone's skill level instead of finding my own skill, which is kind of cliché when I say it out loud, but it’s a double-edged sword—on one hand, it's really good that I was surrounded by this work. It helped me to think critically about my writing and how I could get to the level I was surrounded by. Things only truly started to feel right when I began finding my own voice, my own style, instead of trying to match the skills of everyone else and, in the process, never saying anything that was truly my own.

Jessie

Is it strange to look back now that you aren’t returning next year?

Ruby

In my head, I’m convinced that, yeah, I'll be back, we'll be back in workshops with each other, like we are every year. That's not going to be the case at all. It’s a bizarre thing to think about, because I've enjoyed being in the program. I mean, that's what it really all boils down to: I've enjoyed the program so much. It's been a large part of my life and of who I am. I remember hearing about SOA before I was even there, so the writing program had been on my mind since I was maybe nine years old. I mean, that's half of my life. It’s weird to think of existence without it.

It is an exciting thing that we're all moving on and pursuing our own little things. If I'm remembering correctly, not many people in our class are going into English in college. People are pursuing different things, which I think is awesome; it makes me excited to think about our class going and doing what they love. But it is also a strange thought to think that such a tight-knit group won’t be together anymore.

Jessie

Do you consider this your first book or your senior thesis?

Ruby

I would say, as I was writing it, I was thinking of it as my senior thesis, in the sense that, “I'm a senior and this is my thesis.” But I would say retrospectively, I do tend to think of it more as my book. It’s my first book especially because I want to keep writing books down the line. Now that it's over, it's my book, but while I was writing it, it was my thesis. 

Lillian

For me, it's kind of neither. I know I would have written this book regardless of whether I was in the writing program. There's something in me that needs to write, and I love novels as a vessel for that. 

I've been writing novels—well, I've been in the process of a novel, regardless of which project it is, since I was in, like, fourth grade. Also, from ninth grade to eleventh grade, I was in the middle of a manuscript that never saw the light of day. It took me forever (and I never did anything with it) but the point is that I've always been writing, so I know I would have gotten the story done. It's just a matter of how much time I had to establish it, which was definitely stressful at points, because I would not have pushed myself to write as much as I did in such a short amount of time if I didn’t have to get the book out. I don't think I would attempt it again in that amount of time. It took over my life, but it was nice to see I could accomplish something like that. 

Jessie

What do you think being a young writer gives you that being a more established writer doesn’t? 

Lillian

I think people pay attention more when you're younger, because it’s not that common to see a younger person writing a novel. You get that time to experiment. You're less proud of yourself as well; this might just be a me-thing, but I know when I was little, I was very confident in my writing ability, and that as I’ve gotten older, I've grown a lot of doubts. I do think it's important as writers to doubt, to question whether our work is good and grow from that. But remembering that I once had that unfaltering confidence is nice, because it raises the question of what my younger self would think of my having all of these doubts. At the end of the day, it really boils down to whether I would truly not want to put something out in the world, even though I worked so hard on it, because I'd be scared of what people believe is “good enough.” If I ever get over that hurdle, regardless of those fears, thinking of that younger version would be what helps me get over myself a little bit. 

Jessie

What would the case be that you would choose not to put something in the world that you've written? 

Lillian

Sometimes I just don't think a given product is up to par with my writing. I would only throw something out if it didn't align with, say, my current focus, or if it didn't feel authentic to me anymore. If it's a good idea and still feels authentic, I’m willing to work on it a bit longer. The only case in which I would throw something aside is if it lost the element of itself that made it me.

Jessie

There is a line of yours, Lillian, about two-thirds through Bellflower, in reference to Maira and her experience with taxidermy: “So much of herself echoed back from her work.” I think it rings true for the process of writing a thesis, but also for the nature of this interview. What do you want people to understand about you as an artist when they walk away from your writing? Where should I look in your book to find you?

Ruby

I think what I want them to take away is a fresh perspective on the ordinary. I feel like that's what I'm really trying to go for in my writing, to look at these things that are happening in day-to-day life. I mean, obviously some of my studies are a bit more on the absurd side. Babies aren't really walking dogs around the county park. But the general idea is that I want people to understand there's so much value in looking around at seemingly mundane things, and realizing there's so much more than appears on the surface. I would want people to think twice about the regular routines they find themselves falling into. There's an importance of pausing and looking around and thinking about your surroundings, and that's what's at the foundation of most of my writing: trying to find the extraordinary in ordinary things. It's just so essential.

Especially with my whole seeking-connection theme, there's so much importance in connection for people. That's something I've had to grapple with in my own life—how can I find meaningful connections? And I think the goal of my book—not necessarily the goal, but, you know, something I had in mind when I was writing—was to show it doesn't have to be a work of intense labor, and it doesn't force you to go to absolute extreme measures. There's so many natural connections that can spring up if you take a second, just a second, to look around at what surrounds you. There's more wonder than you would immediately think exists in daily life. 

Jessie

I’m reading the back of your book, and the final note is “we’re all more alike than we think.”

Ruby

Yes, that's the bottom line. When the book is done, that is who I am. That was what I wanted for my book, without even really realizing it as I was writing. “We’re all more alike than we think.” That’s what I want the lasting message to be.

Lillian

The main message of my book—or a lot of what I wanted people to get out of it—is hope, which is funny because the book itself is so grim. I vividly remember we were rehearsing for one of our readings, and I read my passage to the class (I think it was the first chapter, so very grim material) and I looked at Mr. Hammes, and he looked me dead on and said, You're too happy when you’re reading that. Get less happy. But generally for the book, writing a character like Maira, who is so similar to me—I wanted her to have a happy ending because she was tackling loneliness and isolation in a way I never could. I always knew there was going to be a good ending for her, even if she lost a lot along the way. At the end, there would be some measure of hope for the future. She has possibilities in this life that she will be able to face now because she's learned how to connect with people. I can’t imagine Bellflower ending any other way. What would that say about my hopes for my own life?

Jessie

Is there anything I didn’t ask you that you wished you’d been able to talk about?

Lillian

Possibly my research process. I drove to North Carolina, up to a small town and spent time there. Rustgill is based off of that town, though it isn’t named. But beyond that, no. 

Ruby

I feel like there totally is. But—maybe there isn’t. Maybe my bases are covered. 

Jessie

That actually makes sense to me. It seems as though you’re both assured by your books; I’ve gotten that feeling the whole interview. It’s such a comforting thing for me to hear, as someone who feels differently about a majority of their senior thesis. Many of the writers from my class would never call what we made a first book. We let an opportunity so wonderful tear us apart. And so, I really like that. I like that you both know writing is part of who you are, but also that it's not everything.

Ruby

Yes. There’s so much ahead.

______________________

“The Bowling Alley,” excerpt from Receipts

Tonight my brother takes me to the bowling alley and doesn’t hit a single pin, not after eating the entire basket of greasy tater tots he claims will improve his aim, not with the six pound ball and not with the twelve, not with anything in between, rolling into the gutter so often the old man in the lane next to us, who brought his own ball in a traveling case, stops his game to watch my brother every time it’s his turn, and every time gives him a new piece of advice: follow through, arm straight, feet apart, but every time my brother misses, and the old man says next time, but my brother doesn’t mind that he can’t hit a pin, he dances between his turns and spins around before he releases the ball to look at me, sitting in the plastic orange chair with my too-small bowling shoes that barely touch the ground, to say this one’s for you and rolls it straight to the gutter, and then comes the next time, and then comes the dancing. I hit a few pins in our first game, earning an atta girl from the old man, but before long I too can’t escape the gutter—there must be a magnet in there, I say, a magnet pulling the ball from the pins at the last second—but I look to my right, and the old man rolls the ball right into the gutter. Next time, I say, but next time it hits the gutter again and again on the next time, and then my brother, my big brother, is ordering him aim-improving tater tots, and then the old man is laughing, and we are all dancing, we are all dancing, we are all dancing.

________________________________________________________________________

Varallo’s work was previously featured in Trace Fossils Review’s 2025 Young Writers Issue; give it a read here. Varallo’s collection Receipts can be purchased here, and Hughes’s novel Bellflower’s Bloom can be purchased here.

Jessie Leitzel was born in the mountains of Pennsylvania and raised in Charleston, SC. They are a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and the author of The Small Hours (2024). Leitzel’s work is featured in Rattle, The Interlochen Review and Poetry, among others, and was sponsored by YoungArts and the National Endowment for the Arts. A student of the literature department and a proud graduate of the Charleston School of the Arts Creative Writing Program, Leitzel studies at Harvard University.

Ruby Varallo is a writer from Charleston, South Carolina. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and appears in K’in Literary Journal and The Bookends Review. She recently published her debut collection Receipts, and is now entering her freshman year at Kenyon College, where she’ll be studying English.

Lillian Colette Hughes will likely die before she stops writing about the complex interrelation between humans and ecosystems, occasionally with a touch of psychological unease. She is the author of three books and received a National Gold Medal for her writing portfolio in the 2025 Scholastic Writing Awards. When she’s not asking her cat for plot advice, she enjoys volunteering at raptor conservation centers, questioning why she can’t seem to stop writing about deer, and baking with various degrees of success.