Allison+Muller

Hey, I'm Allison Muller, but I go by Alli. I am a Creative Writing major and I have loved writing ever since I was in middle school. I finished a "book" when I was thirteen, but I never submitted it for publication or anything. It wasn't publishable, but the attempt was a good jumping-off point. When I was fifteen, I began working on a real novel, //Faded Neverland//, which I plan to be the first novel in a series. I got stuck and shelved it until March of 2010, when I was twenty-one. Naturally, the content of the book changed drastically from what I had originally envisioned as a fifteen year old high school student. The content is substantially more provocative and controversial. It includes graphic violence and scenes of explicit sexuality. I finished //Faded Neverland// in November of 2010. I am currently working on editing it, as well as on //Faded Neverland//'s sequel, //Fallen//. Though I am primarily a fiction writer, I believe that my nonfiction works are superior to my body of fiction work and I am very excited about taking this workshop. Last semester, I wrote a memoir about betraying a boyfriend and a domino piece about a medical condition I was diagnosed with at the age of nineteen, and which has impacted my life since my birth without me even being aware of it. My strength as a nonfiction writer is that I am not afraid to write about things that are very personal to me: things that other people may be unwilling to hear and things that do not necessarily make me look good. I want to put this out there now in order to prepare people for reading my pieces. The content will almost certainly be uncomfortable and controversial--it's not personal, just my writing style. This semester, I hope to grow as a writer and to learn about each and every one of my classmates. I love workshopping other people's pieces because I don't think there is any better way to learn about someone than to read their writing. In many cases, reading someone's work is like reading their diary. You can often learn things that they would not normally tell you. That is certainly the case for me; normally, I write about things because I am still working them out in my head, and they are not topics I would ever bring up in conversation, not even with my close friends. I look forward to getting to know my teacher and classmates. I am excited to see what work I create this year, and even though it's incredibly nerve-racking, I like hearing the advice I get in workshop. I already have a few ideas and I'm excited to see where they go.