Holly McCully

Dr. Matt King

20 September 2017
WRIT-499

Statement of Purpose: Draft 1

As a Professional and Creative Writing major and Marketing minor at St. Bonaventure
University I have been juggling and perfecting different styles of writing for four years. From the
creative to the analytical, the analytical to the professional, and the professional to the digital I
have been able to become a well-rounded writer who is confident in all facets of writing. I have
spent many hours, multiple days a week, for multiple semesters in peer workshops learning to
better my writing through constructive criticism. I have given presentations on topics I spent full
semesters researching and compiling content for to an audience of my peers and most respected
professors. I have sat one-on-one with my professors, and mentors, and received critique that is
invaluable to my growth as a writer. This combination of experiences prepared me to step out
into the real world, needing only my laptop, my notebook, and my own arsenal of carefully
honed skills to guide me.
When I was 19, I was hired at a prestigious restaurant in my hometown of Cazenovia,
New York to be a hostess. In the duration of my summer working there, I was able to display my
strong verbal communication skills to the owner who then, when learning of my interest in
writing, entrusted me with the job of creating social media content for the restaurant. For the two
years following, I wrote countless e-mail and digital marketing campaigns a new skill I had not
tapped into at school yet. It was there that I found that my true writing passion was in the sphere
of marketing, specifically digital and social media marketing. Since my time working in the
restaurant, I have been hired in two other internship positions as a writer, marketer, and all-
around digital content creator. Throughout these experiences I learned that while I have always
loved writing, I was absolutely enamored with writing to promote something tangible. To me,
the best feeling is knowing that someone is entrusting me with their ideological baby their
business, their novel, their service and I can have a direct influence in how people perceive it,
and produce a desirable outcome by just using my words.
Now that I am a senior in college, my focus as of late has been helping other people to
better their writing skills, as well as to create outlets that can help others get their writing out into
the world. I have started a series of workshops on campus with the hopes of helping others who
may not be as writing minded improve their skills and have created a blog for those who are
writing minded to have a digital publication to get their work out and grow their portfolio.
Additionally, I have been appointed as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Bonaventures creative writing
magazine, which is also the oldest continuously published college literary magazine in the
country, an opportunity that has allowed me to collaborate with other writers as well as foster the
growth my creative writing skills.
One of my greatest writing, and overall, influences is Dr. Cathryn Newton. I was hired in
the summer of 2016 to work as a Research and Marketing/PR assistant with special focus on
helping her with the publication of her novel, which is set to be published in 2018. Dr. Newton is
a professor at Syracuse University who has held positions as the Dean Emerita, as well as
assistant to the Provost. She also co-founded an organization to mentor women in the sciences,
and is the universitys sole Professor of Interdisciplinary Sciences. Her main passion has always
been researching shipwrecks, which is the topic of her new book. In addition to writing a book
that is uniquely equal parts memoir and non-fiction, she is also creating a searchable digital
database of all the physical shipwreck archive cards that she personally is in possession of. Her
desire to make the archive accessible to others who are interested in ship-wrecks, as well as to
write her story and the stories of others in a compelling and never-before-seen way is nothing
short of awe inspiring. As a woman, she is one of my greatest influences as she is such a great
role model for dominating in a field that is traditionally comprised of only men. As a 16-year-
old, she was a sophomore at Duke University and was a part of a sea exploration team of all
much older men. I often imagine how nerve-wracking that experience must have been, and it
drives me to remember that one is always deserving of a seat at the table if their skills can get
them there, regardless of whose table it is.
Working with Dr. Newton has been an inspiration and has influenced a great deal of my
recent writing. Though I am almost always writing analytically for assigned projects, my
personal writing errs on the side of creativity. For the past two semesters my creative writing has
been published in Bonaventures literary magazine, and I would like to keep up this consistent
publication for the two upcoming semesters. My creative writing lately has been predominately
flash fiction, my favorite of all of the creative genres. Similar to Dr. Newton, I have allowed my
own experiences to seep into my writing more and more, as I have learned to value these
experiences as something that is worthy of writing and reading about.