Winthrop University is well known for its production of amazing artists, no matter their art form. Their theatre and dance productions are something to behold, and the art galleries around campus showcase breathtaking pieces almost year-round. However, the writers that are molded through the college’s writing programs don’t fall behind their other artistic contemporaries. Numerous exceptional writers have found and still continue to find their way through the programs, including Julia Breitkreutz.
Breitkreutz, a junior English major with minors in educational studies and creative writing, has been seriously writing since the first half of high school. As a kid, she would often find herself creating her own picture books.
“I liked to write picture books when I was a little kid,” Breitkreutz said. “It was fun. Me and my siblings would make little picture books, but it wasn’t serious writing.”
Despite her increasing interest in the medium, Breitkreutz didn’t take creative writing classes until coming to Winthrop.
According to Breitkreutz, she mainly writes to try to understand the world around her, understand herself, and arrive at a sort of truth about what life is.
“I feel like fiction is one of the best ways to…get a deeper understanding of life,” she said.
She also finds the process of creating characters to be enjoyable, specifically relating them to the people she knows.
Breitkreutz had her publishing debut on X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine’s website in December 2020 with her short story, “The Couch Ate My Mother.”
In regards to the experience, the writer said, “I submitted it to a few places and it kept getting rejected, which I knew was going to happen. We talk in Dr. Hoffman’s class about how many times you get rejected as a writer and …what keeps people from writing is the fear of rejection, but you can’t let that stop you. You shouldn’t necessarily be writing to get published. You should be writing for yourself to an extent.”
Breitkreutz continued, “I submitted my flash fiction to [X-R-A-Y] in October … found out in November [about publication] and got published in December. When I got that email, it was one of the most weirdly gratifying things to know that someone has read your work and they think it is good enough to put on a website … I’m glad I got rejected as much as I did because … it can be easy to stop creating when you get accepted … but you need to experience the rejection.”
When Breitkreutz writes, she found that she usually writes in the evening and likes to have ambient music playing in the background. She also prefers something solid to work on, like a desk, rather than a setting that is too comfortable. Another important factor for Breitkreutz’s
approach to writing is to always be reading other people’s work.
She said, “Always be reading. I think that is one of the biggest things I’ve learned over the past two years, when you’re not writing, is to make sure you keep up with reading short stories and stuff…because you learn so much of the craft from reading how other people write.”
Breitkreutz serves as the host for Winthrop’s Creative Writing Program Podcast. Starting in the midst of COVID-19, the podcast has served as a platform for interested writers to have their work exposed to a wider audience. Breitkreutz is happy to help provide “a chance to get people’s voices out there” and is always looking for more writers to submit their work to be read and discussed.
Anyone who might be interested in having their work on the podcast can contact Breitkreutz at her email, breitkreutzj2@mailbox.winthrop.edu.
When she isn’t writing, Breitkreutz also stretches her creative fingers to artwork. In particular, she experiments with a mixture of physical and digital art.
She said, “… recently my style has been mixed media. I like to warp/disfigure images I paint in Photoshop.”
For anyone interested in seeing these pieces, they can be found on her art Instagram, juliabreitkreutz.art.
