In her second year of her master’s degree program in Journalism, Sarah Stodder applied to the 2017 GSAS Threesis Academic Challenge and advanced on to the Final Round of the competition as one of twelve finalists. Her presentation, “Lazy Lawn: 300 Years in the Life of Rhode Island’s Oldest Summer Home,” highlighted the work of her master’s thesis, which primarily focused on a narrative nonfiction retelling of the 200-year love story between six generations of a family and the oldest summer house in Rhode Island. She won first place.
“I lived alone in the house at age 23,” Sarah explains. “While uncovering the secrets of the house, I examined the way memory shapes how humans view themselves and worked to forge an acceptance of my own memories.” To deal with post-traumatic stress, Sarah moved to the house to find a refuge and begin to heal. “As the summer progressed, I reached a feeling of communication with [the house]–it became a place I could spill my secrets to–and that motivated me to keep digging in its drawers for letters that brought its story to light.”
Threesis provided the opportunity for Sarah to be welcomed into a community where she could share her work, but also presented its own set of challenges on how to do so. “When I first walked into the Threesis mentoring session, I had no idea how to condense my project into a three-minute speech–and that inability was indicative of a greater lack of understanding of exactly what the point of my project was.” Through the mentoring component of the Threesis program, Sarah spent several weeks preparing her speech and said she forced herself to “articulate a vision of what my project was, and the process of doing that helped me not only in the Threesis competition, but in my work animating a vision I could later follow.”
Sarah’s advice to future master’s students applying to the GSAS Threesis Academic Challenge? “Put yourself out there, even if you’re scared of public speaking or you think no one will be interested in what you have to say… The thing about Threesis is that it is a competition focused on bringing out everything accessible and exciting in your project….[and] having to go through the steps of the competition will make you fall in love with your thesis again, and we all need that from time to time as we wok on a long-term project.”
Currently, Sarah is working with a literary agent to finish the first part of her book. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without my degree from GSAS, where I was fortunate enough to have professors who were enthusiastic about my project… Threesis was a great launch for this next step in my project, not only in terms of the monetary winnings but also in terms of my confidence in my project and my ability to pitch it to people, including the agent I’m currently working with.”
As a freelance journalist, Sarah has worked with various publications, including San Francisco Weekly, Washingtonian, and New York’s Bedford + Bowery. Her work has been awarded by the Society of Professional Journalists and the SF Peninsula Press Club, as well as featured by The Wall Street Journal and The San Francisco Chronicle.
Sarah, congratulations on your success with your book. We look forward to hearing all about your future achievements!
Leave a Reply