Every day, Rose O’Malley and Melissa Wyse combat a college student’s worst fear: writer’s block.
These Writing Center consultants help students battle theses, incomplete sentences and bad grammar.
“We help students who struggle in asserting their ideas strongly,” O’Malley said. “I like the one-on-one process, getting them past a block.”
Wyse said she tries to help students for their future writing assignments.
“We help the student, not the paper,” Wyse said.
O’Malley and Wyse said they enjoy working with students who come in regularly, with whom they can form a relationship and see improvement in the students’ writing.
O’Malley, 26, is a second-year master’s student studying literature at AU. As an undergraduate, she majored in Political Science at Catholic University.
She worked for the National Women’s Law Center, writing for their blog, before coming to AU.
Wyse, 29, is a Master of Fine Arts student for creative writing at AU. She got her undergraduate degree in English from Rutgers University.
She has been working on a book of short stories since 2004, which she hopes to finish a draft of by her graduation.
O’Malley and Wyse began working at the Writing Center last semester and spend 10 hours a week there as part of their scholarships.
Besides their full-time graduate work and their jobs in the Writing Center, both are teacher’s assistants for classes in the Literature Department.
Both women hope to work as writing teachers after they complete their degrees.
As avid writers and readers, the two struggle to name a favorite author.
“It’s like asking someone to pick a favorite child,” O’Malley said.
The consultants use each other to continue building their own skills.
“As writers, we never stop bouncing ideas off each other. Even professional writers do the same thing,” Wyse said. “I am always working to improve my own writing.”
kfaherty@theeagleonline.com
Five facts • O’Malley has four siblings. • She is allergic to most animals. • She is a comic book fan. • Just last year, at the age of 25, she got her driver’s license and has recently been struggling with driving through the snow. • Her favorite D.C. restaurant, which she visited during Restaurant Week, is Eatonville, near U Street. • Wyse just returned from visiting Belgium, with her husband. • She has a black and white cat, named Laine. • Her favorite show is “The Wire.” • In Baltimore, she lived in apartments that are in a renovated department store building. • Wyse has never been bitten by a mosquito.
