At 5:23 pm, I frantically enter the lobby of The Study. I whip out my iPhone and google the name “John Vaillant”. His face appears on my screen along with his website, his Wikipedia page, all of the books he’s written and a list of awards that he has won. I scan the lobby again until I find the face that matches my screen. I approach him while holding his life story in my palms. He recognizes me by my confused steps. “Are you Dave?” he asks. “Yes. Are you John?” “That I am. Let’s go for a walk.”
^ This years award winners!
In 2013, Yale created The Windham-Campbell Literature Prize. These prizes are awarded to ~9 distinguished playwrights, fiction and non-fiction writers. During the award week, there are open panels, discussions and master classes taught by the award winners. Each writer is also given a grant for $150,000 to support their writing— one of the biggest grants of its kind. During this week, I was one of the lucky few who were given the privilege of guiding these writers along their weeklong journey through Yale.
Today, I was escorting playwright Noelle Janaczewka and authors John Vaillant and Jim Crace from their hotel to a panel on Science Hill. During what can only be described as one of the most inspiring walks of my life, I got to ask these writers anything and everything. Questions like “When did you realize you were a writer?” to “Do you need me to tell you some good party spots in New Haven?” The writers casually dropped knowledge on me and I tried my best to hold onto every sentence. The story of the time John hitchhiked to the Alaska after college. The wisecracks by Jim about how I was three minutes late to the hotel.
^ Aminatta Forna accepts her award from President Salovey
After the writers reached their destination, I shook John’s hand. He looked at me and said “You know, part of me wishes I had known that I wanted to be a writer at your age.” “It’s kind of terrifying,” I say. “But only in the best possible way” he says. I think he winked too, but that might’ve just been my imagination.
We spend so much of our lives finding things we aren’t meant for until one day, maybe in college or maybe much later, we find something that seems right. These writers have found that. And they’ve struggled, battled and succeeded through that passion. Sometimes it’s utterly overwhelming to have no idea what your life will hold, and sometimes it’s just as terrifying to know exactly what you want to do. But, after meeting these writers, I feel more confident that we’ll all eventually find it, even if we have to hitchhike to Alaska first. And maybe, if we do it well enough, Yale will write us a check for $150,000.
