Page Lagarde was awarded first place in the nonfiction category at the Southern Literary Festival in Arkansas this past weekend and now plans to become a published writer.
Lagarde is a junior majoring in French and English at the university. Last semester, she decided to add a creative writing major to her aspirations. She said her teacher encouraged all of the students to submit a story to the festival, Lagarde abided.
Out of all of the submissions, hers was won.
“I was very surprised, and I was excited to have the opportunity to meet other authors, networking, doing the workshops and just meeting other people,” Lagarde said.
Lagarde wrote the story “To Thaw,” chronicling a freshman year experience she had on an outward-bound dogsledding expedition to Minnesota.
The literary festival took place over three days at the University of Arkansas. The festival consisted of workshops for aspiring writers, published authors giving talks and the readings of the first-place winners.
Lagarde said this was the first writing contest she had ever entered and she now plans on entering as many literary festivals as she can. The festival solidified her decision to pursue creative writing as a career. Lagarde said she has always loved to write, but never wrote as strongly as she does now.
“I used to write little stories in my diary when I was a little, little kid,” Lagarde said. “They’re so laughable. So dumb and funny, but I don’t know, I just did them for so long…”
Lagarde said she started taking creative writing courses this year because she wanted to write her senior thesis as a creative writing piece and was told she’d have to take creative writing classes to do so. She said she wants to write either a novel or a collection of short stories for her thesis. Once she took the first class, she fell in love.
“I just took the class, and so much of it you just think it’s going to be inspiration, oh I’ll just write if I have something to write about,” Lagarde said. “But a lot of it is just sitting down and making yourself work. I think that’s just what this class made me do finally.”
Lagarde is currently working on a story about a pilgrimage in the French town of Lourdes, a place she visited while studying abroad in France. She said she is too inexperienced to know whether she prefers fiction or nonfiction better right now, but she continues to write frequently.
“I think a crowded place is more intimate when you’re writing because if I’m by myself, every little detail is going to distract me,” Lagarde said. “If there is a fly, I will focus in on that, but if I’m in a crowded place with lots of people, I can just focus on it for longer periods of time.”
Lagarde said most of her inspiration comes from her family, most specifically from her dad. He is a frequent character in her stories, she describes him as a storyteller. Lagarde grew up in Mobile, Alabama, surrounded by art and was immersed in choir, musicals and theater all her life.
Lagarde is planning on applying to many graduate schools all over the South, but is focusing in on Virginia and Texas right now. She said she wants to earn an MFA in creative writing and believes she should get her graduate degree from another school to gain new insights and experiences.
“As a writer, you really need to expand and broaden your horizons,” Lagarde said. “Get to know a different place. It’s really good to just go somewhere different and do something different.”
Lagarde’s goal is to become a published writer, but she said she understands how difficult that is. She originally wanted to be a novelist, but she has found a love for short stories, as well, even though she said she understood it was not as lucrative a business.
Lagarde’s favorite author is Jane Austen because of the way Austen provides insight into human nature, moral dilemmas and what she reveals about the human condition. She wants to eventually write like Austen.
“I would hope that my writing could inspire as much as Jane Austen’s has inspired me,” Lagarde said.
