"When my sixth-grade language arts teacher asked our class to put together a book of original creative writing, little did she know that one of us would someday write a novel," said Danielle Wittern, "but even I didn't know that would happen."
Today, Danielle is fine-tuning her opus-in-progress, a novel based on experiences she had during two semesters of study in Spain. A Semester Away: Learning to Live "Entre Lenguas" chronicles the lives of three very different American women who travel to Spain for collegiate study abroad programs. "The characters are composites," she said, "but many of their experiences are really autobiographical."
Danielle first traveled to Spain as a sophomore, planning to stay for just a semester to put several years of Spanish classes to use. In fact, at the time, she wasn't planning a future that relied on her Spanish skills at all, but that semester changed her outlook. "Being forced to immerse myself into a different culture was really intimidating at first, but, once my language skills caught up, I realized how much I loved Spanish," she said. "That definitely changed my life."
At Hamilton, Danielle had pursued a multitude of creative writing opportunities -- all of which were in English. While living in Spain and beginning to think, write and speak comfortably in Spanish, she began to feel the need to express herself creatively in both languages, and a class assignment convinced her that she could apply her writing talent to her second language, as well.
"I had to write a play using the kind of 'street-Spanish' I heard during my time in Madrid," said Danielle, "and it occurred to me that it wasn't just writing that I enjoyed, but the crafting of language, be it English or Spanish, into a beautifully mastered work."
That love of writing earned Danielle a Hamilton Senior Fellowship -- a one-year award that enables her to focus her academic efforts exclusively on her novel. "It's a lot more ambitious than anything I've done before, but I love it," Danielle said. "Now the tough part is choosing what I want to do after college!"
