Each spring, SNHU’s online literary salon, Word for Word, honors recent graduates of the Online BA, MA, and MFA creative writing programs in a special Graduate Spotlight event. Recommended by instructors and selected by Associate Deans Jacob Powers and Paul Witcover for their high literary achievement, these outstanding writers read from and discuss their work, representing all the graduates of their respective programs.
This year’s event took place on Wednesday, June 3, and featured five readers:
Ethan Bowers is a queer and trans author who earned his BA in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. He wants to immerse readers in queer romance stories taking place within whimsical fantasy settings. A lifelong love of nature and an AS in Natural Sciences allow him to create scientifically sound fictional ecosystems and creature designs. His work has been featured in Livina Press. He lives in California with his partner and their three cats. When he’s not writing, he can be found crocheting or playing video games.
Samantha Barrow recently earned her MFA from SNHU. She writes characters that make you feel and plots that make you think. Her contemporary romances are full of first times, second chances, and happy-ever-afters. She has several short stories published in magazines such as Literally Stories and The Pink Hydra and is currently querying her debut novel under her intended pen name, Jemma Morgan. When she’s not completely immersed in the worlds of her imagination, she resides in Georgia with her two cats, one dog, and very own Golden Retriever MMC.
Trenton Guthrie is an aspiring screenwriter whose work explores horror and science fiction, focusing on memory, fear, and identity. Born and raised in Oklahoma, he developed a love for literature and film at a young age. His writing often features complex characters facing both internal and external horrors of real life, where the monster or demon may become secondary to the fears within. He recently earned a Master’s in English and Creative Writing from SNHU, specializing in Screenwriting. Trenton has worked in various education roles, including English Teacher, College and Career Coach, and Content Writer. He enjoys inspiring others to become storytellers in their own lives and finds joy in helping develop new ideas.
Brandi Shaffer is a writer, editor, and literary advocate based in Lincoln, Nebraska. She recently earned her MFA in Creative Writing from SNHU and works primarily in speculative fiction and romance. She is the founder of Prose & Cons Editing and serves as the lead editor of Northern Shadows Magazine. Outside of writing and editing, she volunteers with the nonprofit Larksong Writers Place, where she assists with literary outreach and co-leads a community writing group. Her work has appeared in The Survival Anthology: Survival and Beyond, Issue #3, and on the Larksong Writers Place website. She plans to continue her studies in English literature with the goal of teaching at the university level while supporting writers by expanding literary outreach opportunities to rural Nebraska communities.
Samantha Hensley is a Filipino American writer based in Jersey City, New Jersey. In 2019, she graduated from New Jersey City University with a BA in creative writing and a minor in studio art. Her passion for examining and telling stories inspired her to further her education. She received her MA in Creative Writing from SNHU in 2025. Her master’s thesis, “The Sea Word: Memoirs of My Professor,” honors the memory of a beloved NJCU English professor. Her project is a mentorship-driven memoir that utilizes first-and-second-person perspectives, focusing on themes such as mental illness, loss, grief, and filial love. Presently, she is employed as a writing tutor at her undergraduate alma mater and is expanding her thesis project into a full-length memoir. Her other writing projects include poetry chapbooks and a sapphic romance novel.
After reading excerpts from their capstone and thesis projects, the graduates participated in a Q&A with moderators and the audience. The following is an edited transcript of that Q&A.
W4W: Which author or book has had a significant influence on your writing? What made you decide to write in the first place? Sam, we’ll start with you.
SAMANTHA HENSLEY: When I was writing my thesis, “The Sea Word: Memoirs of my Professor,” I was reading a couple of books that deal with similar cases like terminal cancer and grief. One of them was Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air. And the second one was David Menasche’s The Priority List: A Teacher’s Final Quest to Discover Life’s Greatest Lessons. They’re both memoirs. They kind of depict the harsh realities of terminal cancer. And they share memories that shaped their career path. And what I really thoroughly enjoyed about Menasche’s work is that in most of his chapters, he includes brief letters from former students. And they describe the emotional impact of his teaching as well as his diagnosis. My thesis project is similar to these works, but more so, I believe, Menasche’s. The difference being that mine’s written from a student’s perspective, which delivers a more student-focused account of how valuable and impactful influential teachers are.
W4W: Why honor this particular individual, your former professor?
SH: When I was an undergraduate student, for my senior thesis, I did the same thing, but it was an epistolary memoir to my father. So it’s interesting to see how these are similar but different. I feel like I write differently the way I do to my father versus this professor. They both taught me these different things, and I’m sharing different memories about them.
W4W: Let me ask you the same question, Ethan. What inspired you? What author, what book?
ETHAN BOWERS: I’ve been reading ever since I was a kid. It’s just always what I’ve been doing, nose in a book. But in my adult life, what’s really been influencing my writing is this combination of Mary Oliver and her Devotions collection and Dan Simmons’s Hyperion. I love Mary Oliver’s prose and imagery and reverence for nature. And I love Dan Simmons’s matter-of-fact world building. You’re able to learn a lot about the environment he’s putting you in without it feeling like rambling or infodumping.
W4W: I got to listen to Mary Oliver when I was in graduate school. She was out in Boise, Idaho, and it was very magical. There was a whole crowd of people just swooning over her poetry. I heard some of that lyrical quality in your story, but also that speculative element, all with a strong queer component.
EB: Based on the state of the world right now, I feel it’s very important for representation to be out there, and for queer people in general to take up space. If my stories can make someone feel seen and heard and safe, I’ve succeeded at my job.
W4W: Samantha Barrow, what about you?
SAMANTHA BARROW: Probably like everyone else here, my love for reading started very young. Specifically with YA. Lauren Oliver. Her dystopian series Delirium. That was really influential for me. Now, though, my writing is really influenced by Emily Henry. Happy Place is like my soul book, I’ll say. And Ali Hazelwood. Coming from the fanfic world myself, seeing someone else have such success and gain such a readership coming from fanfic, that’s been really inspirational to me personally.
W4W: Tell us a little bit about the piece you read.
SB: It’s actually set at church camp. I am from the Bible Belt, and I have always kind of felt on the outside a little bit because I’m not very religious and wasn’t brought up that way. So this is kind of my own interpretation of dealing with that. And me reaching my hand out to other youth that might be feeling that way, just to let them know that it’s okay. You’re not alone. We’ve been there, and there’s people out there for you.
W4W: Trenton, what about your influences?
TRENTON GUTHRIE: It’s funny, because I focus on writing horror a lot. But the first story that actually influenced me was Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Because I read it in high school. And I remember having a conversation with our classmates about symbolism. And no one could figure out anything in the story. And our teacher was mad at us. And so she sent us home with homework. And I came back the next day, and it was like a light bulb just clicked. I was like, whoa. I was so inspired by it, and it’s also Southern Gothic. So growing up in Oklahoma, there was a lot of just similar vibes and style to it. It was like the first moment where I’m like, I want to write things like this.
W4W: You read from a screenplay rather than a piece of fiction or nonfiction. What drew you to screenplays? Who’s your favorite screenwriter? Who inspired you to get into it?
TG: Well, what’s interesting is I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I’ve always been drawn to film mainly. And so I’ve always kind of had this conflicting thing of, I want to write, but I’m always more inspired by film. And so it wasn’t until getting into my master’s program where I’m like, oh, I could start screenwriting. Let’s see how it works.
I actually went through Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, which was insane to do. But it was really inspiring to actually be able to figure out a way to tell stories that rely on words in a way that creates visuals. I think I found my little niche in storytelling. I’ve tried short stories and poetry before, but screenwriting has been like, this feels like me.
W4W: That’s awesome. Brandi, what about you?
BRANDI SHAFFER: I’ve always been a reader. I liked things like Treasure Island, Indian in the Cupboard, things like that. And I’m just going to relate it to Empire of Ruins. The two books that influenced that the most, I would have to say, were The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin, and Ruby Dixon’s Ice Planet Barbarians series.
I liked Le Guin’s use of miscommunication and different cultural norms, and how they have to trust each other, learn to trust each other. But then I also like Ruby Dixon’s worldbuilding, her strong characters and finding connection, human—or I guess human-alien—connection when there’s chaos going on. So I wanted to combine the two. That’s what influenced me for this.
W4W: What’s next for you? I know you’re querying your thesis novel . . .
BS: I have twenty agents queried right now. And I’m starting on the outline for the next in the series. It’s going to follow a different set of characters that were introduced in this first book. I have three of them planned out. Not outlined yet. But they’re going to all connect. So I’ve got that going on. And I start another grad program in the fall that will hopefully put me on the track to my PhD program. I’ve also been asked to come and teach editing and publishing at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. I’m really excited about that.
W4W: Congratulations. Sounds like you are going to be busy!
BS: Yes.
W4W: Trenton, what about you?
TG: Recently, I submitted two short scripts into a competition. Waiting to get some feedback before I can resubmit. They give you a period to make some changes based on the feedback. Really excited. One was literally a two-page short script. That was the shortest thing I think I’ve ever written. I loved the challenge of condensing something to something so short. I’m also working on my next full-length script. Still horror, of course.
W4W: Sam, what about you?
SB: Right now, I am querying. And I also got a full request. So I’m waiting to hear back from that. Fingers crossed. But as I’m waiting to hear back, I am plotting my next novel. It’s going to be still in the same vein, but more New Adult. So yeah, I have to keep working to stop checking QueryTracker.
W4W: Ethan, what’s next for you?
EB: I’m currently plotting out what I hope to be my debut novel. I’m trying to work out this honorable knight and rogue fantasy dynamic. It’s been really fun to build little kingdoms and all these little fun places for them to travel through together and how their relationship builds through each different place.
W4W: Very cool! Samantha, how about you?
SH: I’m still working on the memoir, just in bits and pieces. Aside from that, I’m working on a sapphic romance novel about a bi-curious, aspiring ceramicist who has been trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship for five years and ends up falling for a stranger after she temporarily escapes her partner. One thing that I really love about it is that it offers Filipino representation in the literary world. And that’s something that I feel has been scarce, or at least it has been until recently. It’s still like emotional writing, but a different type of emotional writing that isn’t too close to home.
W4W: I can imagine after those two memoirs, that fiction might give you a respite of a kind.
SH: Yeah.
W4W: Well, thank you all so much for sharing your work with us tonight, Samantha, and all our readers. Just incredible, beautiful, powerful, moving work. We want to extend a heartfelt thank-you to everyone who came tonight and who has come to previous Word for Words and has supported us this season.
This year, we were honored to welcome a fantastic lineup of guests. You can see the videos of all of these events at our YouTube channel, including authors Paul Tremblay, Melinda Lo, Courtney Milan, and Chuck Tingle. Industry experts Jane Friedman and Laura Stanfill. Faculty authors Dan Gleason and Tracy Crowe. And the Penmen Review Fall Fiction finalists.
And then tonight, of course, our outstanding graduates from the BA, MA, and Online MFA creative writing programs. Each of our participants has shared compelling work and thoughtful insights into the worlds of creative writing and publishing. And we’re truly grateful for their contributions tonight and wish them the best of luck as they move forward into what I’m sure will be successful careers.
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