A story passed down through sisters

Photo courtesy of Faith Bosanko

Sophomore Faith Bosanko takes a photo with her sister.

Three years ago, sophomore Faith Bosanko picked up the pen because of her admiration for her older sister, Alyssa, and in that time, creative writing has transformed into an activity she has honed and truly loves. 

Enjoying reading and literature, Bosanko writes fantasy stories in her spare time. As the one who brought her into writing, her sister is a constant motivation and supporter of her works, and she has taught Bosanko many of her current writing skills. 

“My sister is 10 years older than me, so she’s been writing for a long time. She started teaching me how to write my own stories, and I just started writing after that,” Bosanko said.

As she continues to write, Bosanko’s skills and stories have grown alongside her, and she now has a multitude of lengthy works. 

“My favorite one is called ‘Survivors of the Midnight,’ and I’ve been working on it for a couple years now. That’s my favorite. I’m hoping for it to be about 30,000 words,” Bosanko said. “The story is basically about a bunch of kids who are orphans, and in their world, their money can be used as magic”. 

Including her unfinished works, Bosanko has written about 10-15 stories. Specializing mostly in the fantasy genre, she takes inspiration from her experiences and what she sees around her.

“[My inspiration] comes from a lot of places,” Bosanko said. “A lot of times, I take small ideas that I change from pictures online, and then I put a title to the picture. I like to write different magic systems and different characters.” 

Her sister first introduced Bosanko to writing through a game she started playing during quarantine. 

“[In the game], you write a letter to someone as if you were a character, and then they write back to you. As I did that, she would hold different activities and she would have different prompts for us. She did that for maybe six months with me and my friends,” Bosanko said. “She also reads my writing and gives me a lot of feedback.” 

Although her sister no longer teaches her as often as before, she still supports Bosanko and provides help when needed. Bosanko does not plan to publish her works in the near future, preferring to continue writing on her own for personal enjoyment. 

“I want to create. I want to make my own stories,” Bosanko said. “I love creating characters and seeing how characters I create interact with the worlds they’re in in ways I don’t expect them to.”