ERIE, Pa. — Six years after she stored it in a drawer, Alexandria Long’s senior thesis is now a published novel.
Long developed the book, a fantasy-romance mashup, as a student in the creative writing program at Penn State Behrend. She completed her degree in 2019.
The book, “Crowned by Sacrifice,” follows Kat, a woman beset with premonitions, as she considers a new suitor, the mysterious Prince Alaric. It’s the first volume of a planned duology.
“It’s a journey of self-discovery, passion, love and heartbreak,” Long said. “Fantasy, romance and romantasy are the genres I gravitate toward as a reader, and the ones I find myself most comfortable writing.”
Long first developed the idea for the novel while in high school. At Behrend, where the story became the basis for her undergraduate thesis, she began to draw on different influences: Nostradamus, the TV series “Reign” and her favorite song lyrics.
“A big one that caught my attention was ‘Zombie,’ by the Cranberries — or, in this case, the Bad Wolves version of the song,” she said. “The chorus lingered with me. It was on repeat a lot back in my Behrend days.”
At Behrend, Long learned how to give and receive criticism. She also adopted a writer’s discipline.
“I submitted to journals,” she said. “I entered for awards. I queried, and I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I took risks, and they paid off.”
She won the Clarence A. and Eugenie Baumann Smith Fiction Award and the Kenneth J. Sonnenberg Poetry Award. She helped edit Lake Effect, the college’s international literary journal.
Her degree in creative writing positioned her for a career in education: Today, she teaches English at the Charter School of Excellence in Erie.
“There is a lot of editing, writing, creating and thinking outside-of-the-box that is needed in education,” she said. “I felt very well-rounded and ready for the job.”
She often incorporates writing in her class assignments.
“Creative writing gets students thinking,” she said. “It also builds on analysis skills, writing and grammar skills, and vocabulary, and it helps students gain a deeper understanding of the text as well as theme, style, tone and symbolism.”
Her own writing had stalled, however. Long had submitted an early version of “Crowned by Sacrifice” to various publishers, but nothing had come of it. Eventually, she put the book aside, focusing on her teaching and her family, which now includes two children.
A year and a half ago, she decided to try again. She made some edits and pitched the novel to Bluebonnet Books, a small publisher in Erie. The same day, she got a reply — and a request for the full manuscript.
More edits followed, including a change her thesis adviser had recommended in 2019.
“This was the same advice that I had stubbornly argued against in my thesis defense,” she said. “Honestly, it was exactly what the story needed. I wish I had listened sooner.”
The book improved as Long continued to fine-tune it.
“My evenings and weekends were the time I had to write,” she said. “After I put my kids to bed, I would stay up and work on edits and revisions. ... I won’t lie. It was exhausting. But it is all worth it. It is a dream come true.”