This article is part of a series featuring some of this year’s outstanding graduating students, nominated by their academic school or college or another University program in which they participated. Check for additional profiles of students in the Class of 2013 on UConn Today from now through Commencement.
It is hard to imagine that award-winning non-fiction author Alyssa Palazzo, a senior English major and women’s studies minor from Glastonbury, failed her English classes in middle school.
“I was a really avid reader, but my writing was horrible,” says Palazzo. “But then in 8th grade my writing really picked up.”
Since then, Palazzo has become involved in numerous creative writing projects, including working for UConn’s Creative Writing Program, writing press releases, and coordinating events for writers visiting UConn’s campus.
Sean Forbes, acting director of the Creative Writing Program and adjunct professor in the English Department, says Palazzo is a very hard worker.
“Alyssa is just really trying to leave her mark at UConn,” says Forbes.
Aside from her work at the Creative Writing Program, Palazzo has won numerous honors, including the 2012 Aetna Creative Non-Fiction Award for a piece called “Leave-Taking,” and again this year for a piece called “End Time.” Palazzo also won the 2012 and 2013 Collins Literary Prize.
Palazzo’s writing, including “Leave-Taking” and “End Time,” is inspired by her desire to speak out against domestic violence.
“People just don’t talk about sexual abuse and domestic violence,” says Palazzo. “When you put a feminist twist on your work, you get criticized.”
Palazzo got a taste of negative criticism from readers when The Hartford Courant published her short essay about violence against women in its young essayist column called “Fresh Talk” this February.
“I had one awful comment, but then I got eight emails from people saying how happy they were that I wrote about domestic violence,” Palazzo says.
Apart from creating her own work, Palazzo also enjoys working with other authors as the editor-in-chief of UConn’s award-winning literary magazine, the Long River Review. The Long River Review, in conjunction with UConn’s Design Center, publishes a collection of UConn students’ fiction, non-fiction, poetry, original translations, and artwork.
“We really try to publish work that makes us physically react,” says Palazzo. “We want pieces that evoke an emotion.”
Darcie Dennigan, assistant professor-in-residence in the English Department and faculty advisor for the Long River Review, says Palazzo has an ambitious vision for the magazine.
“The Long River Review is supposed to be student-run, but from what I understood from faculty who have overseen the course in the past, that meant lots of faculty intervention. Not so with Alyssa,” says Dennigan. “She has a vision for the journal, and I work with her to help her execute it if I can.”
Palazzo has been working hard to raise money to have a full color cover for this year’s magazine to be released this month. The Long River Review staff came up with an entertaining fundraising strategy. If they raised $300 by March 15, they would perform Romeo and Juliet in tights in the middle of Fairfield Way.
The Long River Review surpassed its goal and raised over $400, and although it was not enough to cover the expenses of a full color cover, Palazzo says they are in the process of planning what will surely be an amusing performance.
According to Palazzo, people should support the work that Long River Review publishes because of literature’s incalculable worth – “when you read the magazine and find these little moments of happiness,” she says. “We’re producing work that will be cherished forever.”
In the future, Palazzo says she is interested in pursuing a career in women’s advocacy, but immediately after graduation, she would like to go back to Manhattan and work for W.W. Norton & Co. where she interned last summer.
“I want to go into publishing; I want to be a writer; I want to go into politics,” says Palazzo. “There’s just so much I want to do.”
