Writing Daily Themes proved to be a game changer for prize-winning author Whitney Martin Collins ’91 when she was a student at Hotchkiss. The writing practice, which dates back to the mid-20th century at Hotchkiss, takes place over a two-month period, when all lower mids are required to write up to 20 short essays.

Collins, who arrived in Lakeville straight off the farm in Kentucky, struggled academically and in sports. “It’s a minor miracle I’m here today,” the alumna joked to students when she visited campus Feb. 9-10 through the Nalen Writing Program. Putting her pen to paper for Daily Themes, however, transformed her Hotchkiss experience and set her on a path to becoming an aspiring writer.

The turning point came when she received an A-plus and high praise from her English instructor Geoffrey Marchant for one of her essays.

“He handed the paper to me and said, ‘You’re going to be a writer.’ That was huge for me,” said Collins. “So when your teachers tell you you are good at something, listen to them.”

The Nalen Writing Program was established by Skip Nalen ’48, P’79, G '13,’15 as a gift to the School in appreciation of the writing instruction generations of graduates have received at Hotchkiss. Visiting Nalen writers inspire students and instructors in the art and practice of writing through classroom time and an evening reading with a Q and A. 

Collins, who lives with her family in her native Kentucky, holds a B.A. from Hamilton College, where she majored in English and creative writing. She earned an M.F.A. at Spalding University. Prior to pursuing her graduate degree, she spent nearly 15 years working as a freelance writer for trade magazines before making the plunge into fiction writing.

She has garnered numerous awards, and her fiction has appeared in many literary publications, including The Southeast Review, The Pinch, and the Lumina. She is the recipient of a 2020 Pushcart Prize. Big Bad, her collection of 13 stories, published in 2020, was the 2019 winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. In 2021, she placed first in Grist’s ProForma Contest for her story, “Cray.” Her story, “Rocks 4 Sale,” is a nominee for the 2022 Pushcart Prize. 

Her writing has been described as “magical realism,” a literary genre that combines realistic fiction interwoven with fantastic moments. Sometimes her stories have an element of horror juxtaposed with dark humor. Her writing in this style was already evident in the Daily Theme that earned her an A-plus. The prompt for the theme was to write about a fictional new head of school in an ordinary location. Collins chose to write about a seemingly affable and helpful man in a grocery store who turns sinister at the end of the story.

When she encounters writer’s block, she tells students, she picks up a book by a writer she loves and reads, or she will force herself to sit down and write. She offered similar advice to lower mids who find Daily Themes daunting.

“Sit down and write five lines. When you think about it, you tell stories to each other verbally all day; so now, just write them down. You are all storytellers,” she said. “Just have fun with it.”

Bits and pieces of her own memories of Hotchkiss have played into some of her fiction. She often draws inspiration and ideas through eavesdropping on conversations and by simply observing situations in everyday places like airports, motels, or parking lots, and adding her own suspenseful elements. 

“You have to open yourself up to life's oddities, those very normal situations where something unintentional and unexpected happens,” she explained.

Typically, her stories end in a way that is not thoroughly satisfying for the reader. “But that is the beauty of fiction,” she said. 

"If I tie everything up in a nice bow at the end, the reader doesn’t have much of a personal connection to it.” 

Big Bad is a collection of stories about scrappy underdogs who are trying to overcome an obstacle, whether it is a person, a situation, or a condition. To readers, the plight of the characters can seem hopeless, but that is intentional.

“I always try to leave the ending with a little bit of potential for redemption, transformation, mercy, or justice. So, there is hope; I just don’t serve it up to you,” said Collins.

“I want my story endings to feel like I am giving you a meal, but there’s one thing missing from the plate. What would you put there? What do you think happened?”