An award-winning alum

By Aine Dougherty

LM? Kobe went there! Yes, our beloved high school is world renowned for its most famous alum, but the basketball star often overshadows other extremely successful LM alums. In fact, a critically acclaimed author is also proud to call herself an Ace.

Sarah Cornwell graduated in 2001, published her first novel in January 2014, and immediately earned high praise from places like Publishers Weekly and Booklist. What I Had Before I Had You is a captivating novel that skillfully intertwines Olivia Reed’s past—her psychic mother and unusual childhood—with her present when her nine-year-old bipolar son disappears on her first visit back to her Jershey Shore hometown. High school students will be drawn in by the intriguing plotline and will absolutely identify with Cornwell’s insights on relationships between parents and children.

As someone who tried to write novels as a little girl, I know how daunting the task of coming up with a topic can be. Cornwell’s first novel, in which the protagonist’s mother taught her to believe in the infant ghosts of her twin sisters, was sparked by the idea of her mother’s miscarriages, or her “ghost siblings.” Her stories tend to spring “from a question or a moment or an image that [she doesn’t] understand that [she’d] like to understand.”

When we think of writers, we often think of them sitting down and writing nonstop until the book is finished. Cornwell, however, doesn’t fit that stereotype in the slightest. During the ten years it took her to finish What I Had Before I Had You, she “worked the weirdest, most interesting jobs [she] could find” (like an investigator of police misconduct and a toy seller!), “moved around the country, fell in love, went through graduate school…took up screenwriting, lost and gained friends, and read like crazy.” At the end of her ten-year journey, she was not the same person that she had been at the beginning. Her novel is so special because it “contains different versions of [herself] as a writer,” and its publication has given her the “emotional validation” that all authors, including Cornwell, live for.

But that’s not all—Cornwell works as a screenwriter in Los Angeles adapting the work of others at the moment, but “if the right production opportunity presented itself,” she would jump at the chance to adapt her own writing for the big screen.

So how can current LM students learn from this talented, successful former student? During her time in high school, Cornwell had a strong system of support and constructive criticism through LM’s literary magazine, Dolphin, as well as her English teacher Mr. Fisk, who “spent extra time with [her] outside of class to help [her] with [her] independent creative work.” She gushes, “Thanks, Mr. Fisk, if you should happen to be reading! You made a great difference to me!” Her story just goes to show how an experience or a mentor in high school can influence the rest of our lives for the better.

She offers some sage advice for aspiring writers: “Write! Actually write. Find out what terrifies you or thrills you, what won’t let you go, and write toward that.” We all know that formulaic English essays and endless math problems can suck up our time, but, if you really want to be successful, you have to make time for what’s important to you. Finally, Cornwell urges young writers to be individualistic, imploring, “don’t listen to too much advice.”

Looks like Kobe isn’t the only Ace that LM has to be proud of!

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