When Liv Serkosky, ‘26, earned an elementary school role in a production of The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley, Jr. at KISS Theater, she knew she was bound for the stage.
“It wasn’t a question of if I should perform, but when,” said Serkosky, an Exeter, Pennsylvania native who wanted to take her love of performance and creativity to the next level at Wilkes after hearing about its performing arts programs.
After her first semester as a theatre major, she enrolled in the Wilkes University Honors Program, quickly connecting to her theatre cohort and fellow honors program students. Through her other creative endeavors, including working as a peer mentor, designing and painting sets for shows and collaborating on the Manuscript Society, she continued to engage with the community and find new outlets for self expression.
One such outlet was an honors program course, Writing Popular Fiction, taught by Jen McLaughlin, a New York Times bestselling author and assistant director of the Honors and Scholars program.
Pulling inspiration from foundational lessons in the Maslow Family Graduate Creative Writing Program of which McLaughlin is an alumna and workshop facilitator, the course focuses on the elements of story and culminates in a ten-page creative writing piece.
Serkosky was thrilled to return to writing, “I always wrote little stories as a kid, but of course, they didn’t make much sense,” she joked, “but this course showed me what the path to a story looks like.”
Where most students would see their final assignment as the end of the course, Serkosky saw a beginning. With McLaughlin’s encouragement, they created an independent study where that initial story will become a novel, a process McLaughlin is more than familiar with and excited to share.
“For the first stage, we worked on outlining and writing chapters in short blurbs. It’s almost a prequel to the story at this point,” said McLaughlin, noting that “Liv was ready to embrace the work wholeheartedly.”
Serkosky’s experience in the theatre program also supported her characters’ development. “With acting, you have to really step into a character, to understand their stakes and then raise them,” she commented.
Serkosky’s novel, a queer love story, is now in the works. She’s also added both English and history minors to her major to further expand her interests. Completing the first draft of a novel is no easy task, but it’s thanks to her friends, instructors and the supportive and welcoming atmosphere at Wilkes that Serkosky was able to explore all aspects of herself.
“Wilkes helped me discover my identity through art,” said Serkosky.