Not your typical run-of-the-mill professor

By: Monica Jovel and Tara Wilkinson

Perhaps it’s because of his awesome personality, his incredible passion for writing, or maybe it’s that he is a wonderfully creative man who just knows how not to take life too seriously. In either case, when we left his office after the interview we were in stitches.

Becoming a writer?

“I was going to be a chemist, but they lead very lonely lives . . . I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life hunched over computer screen working on my research.” But how do you go from physics to writing you say? “It didn’t occur to me that one could be a writer – I mean you could read writers, but it never occurred to me that I could be one.”

Chemistry and writing are such extremes, what changed his mind?
Marrow said, “I wasn’t great at [chemistry]," about his ideology behind the transition. He had always been good at writing and it was something that he could be great at whereas chemistry, he would always only be good at. And thank the Lord he did.

So then where did he go?

Another good question. In fact Stephen went to a total of three schools and some odd jobs here and there before he began teaching at a west Michigan university.

He began with:
• B.A in English writing at Northern Michigan University
• Masters in English in University of Arizona
• MFA in creative writing in fiction poetry in Florida

We had heard his track record and were a bit impressed at how far out Mr. Marrow had traveled. "It’s good to move around, especially for writers, to get a view of what’s out there.”

Life after graduation

After all that education, how did he fall into professional writing? Well, after school he just kind of fell into the professional writing world. “I just ended up in roles that required me to do professional writing,” Stephen reflects. That and the fact that he was the only person around who could do page maker. Now days Marrow works on professional documents like memos, emails, letters, and an occasional grant.

Professional writing vs. Creative writing

When asked what he found to be the most different, writing these documents compared to his more creative works, he said expected things like the

• design questions
• the layout
• typography
• good use of his spaces

He also said that it’s the thought that comes into it that makes it different from creative writing. “I mean its not like you can say hey, that was a great memo, I’m gonna pin it on the wall now!” this being one of his many comical comments.

Being well-prepared vs. being resourceful...

“If you’re a smart person you pick up quickly through examples and having the right people, but it would have helped to take some professional writing courses in college.” Still he must have learned pretty well along the way because he is still working professionally. In fact when asked what jobs he had “fallen into” he said “a number of them, which do you want?”

?strong>So what does one do as a professional writer?

Consequently Marrow like his academic life has also led a very diverse working life: carrying titles like:

• assistant professor of writing at an university ( where he earns most of his money)
• fiction and poetry writer
• senior editor of Solar press
• editor and publisher of the magazine Detail, an online publication of short fiction stories.

Getting to the finished product!

In fact when it comes to his professional writing even his editing process and creative process is also different. Writing and editing is a grind”, Marrow states, “but when you get the finished product, and it smells nice and looks nice. ... then it’s a reward.” Well stated Marrow, but he wasn’t done yet, he ended on a note about something we all know very well, our audience . . .“Its more about your audience and how forthcoming you want to be with your opinion than it is about metaphors, you know, you just can’t use metaphors in an email.”

Advice for young writers?

The big word on this professor’s mind is INTERNSHIPS! In fact he couldn’t stress it enough. “Take as many opportunities as you can, be aggressive about it . . . in school is the best time to do it.” Although this goes out to those who enjoy writing, he also had a word of advice to those who aren’t as zealous for writing as he.

What if you think writing's not for you?

“If you don’t enjoy writing, probably you’ve not been doing the right kind of writing” Hmm, the right kind of writing, this seems simple enough but what he said was very true. “There is a whole other world out there besides your standard, 5 paragraph essay, although it’s beautiful in its design” . . .
“Any job you do its going to involve some kind of writing, in fact that’s why Einstein was so great because he could take what he learned and make it simple by writing.”

Marrow in a nutshell

Professor Marrow is currently looking to settle down for good in Michigan with his wife, they are now currently house shopping. He currently teaches a variety of writing classes and is certainly looking forwards to having more students with which to teach, learn, and share his experiences and his passion for writing. We just spent about and hour and a half with him and it was fun, imagine a whole semester full of wacky comments, and a professor that’s actually worth going to class for . . .