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 11, and featured five readers: Bethany Willard (BA), Nikki White and Jessica Matson (MA), and Ashleigh Worley and Kayleigh Michael (MFA).
Bethany Willard earned a BA in Creative Writing and English from Southern New Hampshire University. They grew up in a small town, ripe for planning stories, within the quiet of the Puget Sound. Once pursuing a career in psychology, Bethany has delved into the human condition and emotions, fascinated with the ways our pasts pave the direction of our futures. When they are not soaking pages with symbolism, Bethany enjoys playing D&D, hiking, and annoying their husband and cat. Bethany works for the non-profit PROVAIL in Washington and volunteers for an Oregon-based LGBTQ+ non-profit.
Kayleigh Michael co-facilitates the Northampton Literary Society in western Massachusetts, which provides free writing meet-ups, workshops, and open mics in the area. She teaches composition and leads tutors at Southern New Hampshire University, where she also earned her MFA in October 2024. She is currently querying her thesis novel, Salt Moon.
Nikki White earned her Bachelor of Science in Communications and Media Studies from the University of Minnesota. She received her Master of Arts in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. Nikki has short stories published in the University of Minnesota Crookston Inspired: Art Journal (Issue 7). Her poetry chapbook, “HemisFear,” which explores the appreciation and enigma of the left and right sides of the brain, was submitted to publishers in spring 2025. She is currently working on a compilation of short stories, taking inspiration from one of her favorite authors, Adam Johnson.
Ashleigh Worley is a fantasy writer who recently earned an MFA in Creative Writing, honing a love for telling stories that has followed her since childhood. Outside of fiction, she’s worked in SEO and content writing, and she hopes to use her skills to uplift minority voices within the publishing industry. You may have seen her byline on many SNHU Newsroom stories, and she has been a behind-the scenes force here at the Penmen Review. When she’s not reading or writing, she’s probably gaming or spending time with her dad and abundance of cats.
Jessica Matson spent the first half of her childhood just south of Boston and the latter half nestled among the pines and rocky coast of southern Maine. She holds a Master of Arts in English and Creative Writing with a concentration in Nonfiction from Southern New Hampshire University and a Bachelor of Music in Film Scoring from Berklee College of Music. Her memoir writing explores the raw terrain of trauma and recovery, and the resilience that rises from it—quiet but unshakable, always anchored in truth. Jessica now lives in New Hampshire, where she continues her twenty-year career in academic technology within higher education. She shares her home with her cat, Sky, who faithfully oversees her storytelling, piano playing, and video game marathons.
After sharing excerpts from their capstone and thesis projects, the five graduate readers participated in a Q&A with moderators and audience members. The following is an edited transcript of that Q&A.
W4W: Bethany, I see from your bio that you work for two nonprofits, including one that focuses on LGBTQ+ rights. So, like a lot of our students, you have another job beyond writing. How does that influence your writing?
BW: As someone who is in the queer community, representation is very important to me. And I want to try to make sure that if I’m doing so, I’m doing so in a positive way, because we all have seen far too many examples of poor representation in media.
W4W: Kayleigh, dialogue was a standout in your piece. Can you talk a little bit about your approach?
KM: I used to live in Maine before I moved down to western Mass, and this whole story takes place in rural Western Maine, like lakeside Maine. I wanted it to have some semblance of reality to how I grew up in Northern New England and Irish-American. The mother, Maura, is based on one of my high school best-friend’s mom, who was very overly formal and was almost like a little actress. I’m a New England writer. My work is about New England. So that’s where it comes from.
W4W: Nikki, I was thoroughly impressed by your poem “Language.” It was a sestina, a very difficult form—and you said it almost killed you, right? They are very complex, and they can be very hard because usually you don’t want it to come off as forced. But yours was so fluid and worked so well. And I loved [how the word] mute punctuated itself so well throughout the poem. Was this your first exploration into sestinas, or have you tried this before?
NW: Yes. Well, I’ve tried them. They ain’t tried me. But oh my gosh. Yeah, I have tried them. And I made it a goal in my writing program. And so in my capstone with Professor Monroe, who I love dearly, I said this chapbook is not going to be right in my mind until I can get this right.
And I will keep trying and keep trying. It was so difficult. But it was the complexity of it and the challenge of it that just kept propelling me forward to keep trying.
W4W: Ashley, you read the prologue of your thesis novel, which is an epic fantasy. Prologues are fairly common in fantasy, but yours really stands out thanks to the matter-of-fact voice of the narrator. “So we killed the dragon.” “So we killed the king and queen.” Harsh! But at the same time, there’s compassion and emotion there too, when the narrator steps in to spare the innocent child of the royals. Is this character going to continue in the rest of the novel?
AW: It’s not. It’s something I wrote for an exercise in one of my early MFA classes, and I loved it so much that I wanted to use it in the story somehow. So I made it the prologue.
W4W: And then the novel picks up years later?
AW: Mm-hmm. It does.
W4W: Jessica, what made you ultimately decide to write about the sexual abuse you suffered as a music student, from a trusted instructor?
JM: I’ve been journaling since I was six years old. There’s a whole shelf behind me of all my journals, including of that time. So I thankfully have a record of most things in my life, and I got sober on May 30 of 2020, just during the pandemic, thanks to author Laura McKowen, who came out with a book called We Are the Luckiest and started a virtual online support community.
At the same time, I just decided part of my recovery is to write about what happened, and be healed in my sobriety through looking at my experiences, but framing them in the way of lessons learned, the silver linings, rather than dwell on and be a victim of that, or feel sorry for myself or feel shame.
I just felt like it was time. Time to finally give it a narrative. It’s been almost twenty years. I tried very hard to get justice through the courts. It was difficult and proved not to work. So like I said in my essay, my justice is to put words to it and hopefully, more so and more importantly, help someone else that might be experiencing the same thing or has gone through something similar.
W4W: Someone commented in the chat, and it stuck out to me as well among many of the lines, “But music was never the villain.” And I love seeing that piano behind you, knowing that you continue to play it . . . It’s a wonderful thing.
JM: I still haven’t been able to pick up the saxophone, but piano was my first instrument. I started when I was four, and it’s my safe space. So I continue to play that.
W4W: I’m glad to hear it. Well, we only have a couple of minutes left. So what I’m going to do, because we’re pressed for time, is ask everybody the same question, and maybe we can just go around. What I want to know is, what’s next? What are you doing with the piece that you read for us? And what are you working on now? I’ll start us off with Kayleigh.
KM: I just joined Substack a few months ago, and I started writing Sunday Missives, a newsletter every Sunday. And it has a little template to it—it’s called The Five W’s. I write about my writing community, then the world—I say a little something about the world and how horrific it is and things I plan to do about it. Sometimes I can’t do anything, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Then I do a little woo-woo section because I’m witchy and I like astrology and shit like that. So I do a little woo-woo, and then words and then wonder. So please check that out. It’s free to subscribe to.
W4W: Bethany, what about you?
BW: The piece I shared is the piece I’m trying to have the first draft done by the end of the year. I’m a little bit behind because of . . . Kayleigh was mentioning the way the world has been. There’s been some other coping mechanisms I’ve been using that have taken me away from writing a little bit. But I’ve reconnected with some friends and some fellow writers, so I’m going to get back on track, I think.
My plan is to have draft one done by the end of the year and then see what I can do from there. It’s a scary endeavor. I want to invite everyone to my blog, Blushes & Whimsy. It was really great to be able to come on here and hear everyone else’s words and be able to share.
W4W: We wish you the best of luck with that draft. I hope you get it published. Nikki, asking you the same question.
NW: HemisFear is out in the publishing universe. I finally let it go. I was nervous, but it was ready. It was time. I know someone asked in the chat about whether the word mute was in the sestina originally. No, it was not. I had spent months writing and rewriting and revising and rewriting and rewriting, and it was one of the last revisions where it just—I think as you all as students and my fellow graduates know—when it clicks, it clicks. And you just know. And I just knew that that was it to unlock the full capability of that poem.
So right now, I’m currently working on a compilation of short stories. One of which my husband was bummed I didn’t read today, about an ice-cream man.
W4W: Well, let me just point out that Southern New Hampshire University has an online literary journal called the Penmen Review that is always open for poetry and fiction and nonfiction submissions. So I address that to you and to everybody here, actually.
Ashleigh, let’s move on to you. What’s next? Are you querying your novel?
AW: Well, I think I was so close to it at the end of my MFA program that I was like, this isn’t ready. But when I read it back for this event and I was practicing, I was like, wow, this is really good.
W4W: It is really good!
AW: So that might be my next step. Outside of that, I’ve started freelancing. I’m really excited because I had such an amazing opportunity to learn so many things during the MFA program. And not everyone gets that opportunity. And so I really want to help, especially indie authors, to be able to make the best versions of their book blurbs and author bios and things like that so they can feel confident in marketing themselves.
W4W: That’s awesome. I know you’re going to do great. I mean, all your work, your journalism, and everything here at SNHU was just fantastic.
AW: Thank you.
W4W: Jessica, what about you?
JM: My thesis courses took a lot of emotional toll on writing about my life, so I’m like an ostrich, head in the sand right now. But a couple of my past professors keep emailing me and pushing me to submit my manuscript. I just need to gather the confidence to do so. I don’t have school anymore with a deadline, so I guess I need to do something.
But my small goal for this year is to finally start a Substack and to start writing as regularly as possible and submit essays outside of my thesis to different places. I love Duotrope, so I’m using that. I have nothing published, so I don’t have a repertoire or anything yet. I just have to get the courage to dip my feet in the water. And being here tonight definitely helped.
W4W: Good. You’re a really wonderful writer. The emotional content of your work is so raw, and yet the mastery of prose with which you describe it, and put a boundary around it and own it, really what sets your work apart and makes it something special. So you may not be published yet, but I suspect that won’t be the case for long.
JM: Oh, thank you so much.
W4W: And that brings us to the end of our night, unfortunately. Just amazing work across the board. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry—you all encapsulate the best of the best that we have to offer here at Southern New Hampshire University’s creative writing programs. And we’re just so thankful to have you be a part of it. Thank you so much.
Tonight marks our final Word for Word reading event of the academic year. We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has supported the series and helped make it such a success. This year, we were honored to welcome a fantastic lineup of guests, including authors Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Jeffrey Ford, Tananarive Due; literary agents Joshua Bilmes and Lucienne Diver; faculty authors Adrienne Kisner and Melissa Marr, who specialize in young adult literature; the Penmen Review Fall Fiction Finalists; and tonight, 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. We’re truly grateful for their contributions. If you missed any events or want to revisit your favorites, be sure to check out our Word for Word YouTube playlist. Finally, a big congratulations and best wishes to all of our graduating students represented by Bethany, Ashleigh, Nikki, Kayleigh, and Jessica as they take their next steps.
Thank you again for being part of this community, and we look forward to seeing you in the fall.
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