Every year, the St. Mark’s Literary Festival invites a panel of writers to campus. These writers, spanning from authors to screenwriters, speak to the students, sharing information about their processes, artistic journeys and advice on how to proceed with their own literary journeys.
This year’s edition of the Literary Festival featured screenwriter and director Angela Gulner, singer-songwriter Joshua Davis, children’s author Candace Fleming, poet Gopal Raman ‘17 and Brent P. Johnson ‘89 Guest Writer Andy Weir.
As the headlining author, Weir drew attention from students, particularly for his bestselling novels “The Martian,” “Artemis” and “Project Hail Mary.” These novels have earned widespread acclaim across the literary world and are a part of many high school curricula, including the school’s English 12: Science Fiction, Gaymarie Vaughan’s senior science fiction class.
Weir’s unique take on science fiction has in large part led to his writing success, and this style took a lot of inspiration from the science fiction he read in his childhood. The authors he draws inspiration from, such as Robert A. Heinlein, portrayed the future in a positive way, something Weir strives to do in his writing as well.
“Science fiction just means that the story is taking place in a setting where the people involved have access to technology that we have not yet invented,” Weir said. “The authors (I read) would portray a future that’s really awesome. I feel like a lot of science fiction nowadays has been taken over by dystopian storylines, and I’m not into that because I don’t find it plausible. As you look through time, we just keep getting better and better, and the quality of life for humans on this planet just keeps going up and up and up.”
Weir’s novels start with the scientific backbone, which he gets from a mix of online research and his background in computer science and software engineering. After he writes down what he already knows, he looks online to fill in the gaps in his knowledge.
Though they may captivate many readers, Weir’s novels don’t serve only for entertainment. He also hopes that his books can spark an interest in STEM nationwide by destigmatizing science and fighting the notion that only “nerds” like STEM fields.
“Anything that gets kids engaged and interested enough that they’re learning is good,” Weir said. “You can foster an interest in STEM and make sure that (kids) don’t get punished for it. In my generation, being interested in STEM meant you were a nerd, and you were ostracized as a result.”
His novels can also work to inspire social change. His book “Artemis,” which focuses on a female protagonist, can encourage women to get involved in fields they were previously unable or afraid to go by presenting a strong, relatable female lead who tackles complex scientific challenges.
“Girls are unintentionally taught that girls shouldn’t like science,” Weir said. “We as a society should work on that and make an environment where nobody makes fun of her for following her interests.”
Having an environment that allows students to explore their passions to the fullest is important to fostering interest in STEM as well as fostering artists. For poet and alumnus Gopal Raman ’17, the school was that kind of environment.
“One of the things that’s interesting is that coming back to campus after many years has reminded me how special the place is,” Raman said. “This culture and this school allow people to really just be earnest and to explore things they care about.”
Raman’s poetry journey began early in his household, where reading literature was a core habit of his family. Growing up, Raman spent a lot of time reading, and as he entered middle school, a desire to find a creative outlet led to the discovery of poetry, which quickly clicked and resonated with him. As he got older, Raman kept writing poetry but also became more diligent in reading poetry, discovering poets such as Rainer Maria Rilke and C. P. Kavafy who later influenced his writing. But outside of just poetry, another art form had a heavy influence on his writing.
“I think that I’d say a lot of my photography early in St. Mark’s informed how I thought about poetry,” Raman said. “As I was out on a photography assignment taking photos, I would often be writing about the things that I was looking at really attentively. I think a photographic kind of attention was a core part of my practice of looking at things and really trying to play with what it is I saw.”
By the end of high school, Raman had published a book, “Beyond the Edge,” a collection of his own poetry. He had also been one of five poets selected nationwide by the President’s Committee on the Arts to be a National Student Poet. After St. Mark’s, Raman went on to study at Stanford and is now at South Park Commons working to incubate companies. However, he still appreciates poetry and values the lessons he has gained from it.
In his work, finding the right founders to work with is a major part of the company’s success or failure. For Raman, STEM and art closely align when looking at the characteristics of a good founder.
“When it comes to finding founders that I might want to invest in or work with or support, a lot of what I look for are people who I think embody a lot of the characteristics that many of the best artists I know embody, which is the sense of curiosity, the sense of depth and the sense of authenticity,” Raman said.
Like Weir, Raman mixes his passion for art with his other passions. For young artists on a path similar to his, he suggests exploring all those passions and finding the points at which they intersect.
“I think one of the things that really motivated me when I was young was blending my photography, my poetry and my graphic design,” Raman said. “A lot of the stuff that makes life fun exists at the intersections of categories. What I would encourage young (artists) to do is, if you find it fun, lean into it and see how it can start to change how you think about a lot of other things in life too, because it’s a wonderful window into all kinds of experiences that you can start to have.”
