Meet Our New Intern: Mia Grace Davis

I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t writing. By ten years old I had filled my first journal, teeming with new story ideas, song lyrics, and, of course, the intricate details of my “love life.” In seventh grade, I finally sat down and wrote an entire novel. It was just over one-hundred pages, single-spaced, and is still one of my proudest accomplishments to date. Even when I had to evacuate as California wildfires crept up the hill toward my house, I continued plowing through a short story.

Once I got to high school, I decided to take a stab at a different form of writing—poetry. I studied the various ways my writing could move across the page, manipulating blank space and turning it into something beautiful. I learned the value of language, how each individual word contributed to something greater than itself.

During this time I started getting published, my work reaching further than the confines of Google Docs. I attended programs like the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, stepping into a world of esteemed authors, accomplished editors, and talented teenage writers. In my senior year of high school, I was a National YoungArts Finalist for Writing, providing me the opportunity to attend National YoungArts Week. There, I publicly shared my experience with OCD for the first time through my spoken word poem “ocd & me: a contrapuntal.” I left Miami secure in my identity as an artist.

Now, I am returning to fiction writing, spending hours upon hours wrapped in the worlds I’ve created. In these stories, I am careful to incorporate the poetic language and devices that I gathered throughout high school, melding the two forms together in new and exciting ways. Writing has altered my life for the better, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without it.

There is something so special about joining a community like Sundress Publications, one that is so devoted to the art of writing. I am immensely grateful to be an editorial intern in this space for the next six months, helping talented writers find their voices while I continue to find mine.

Mia Grace Davis (she/her) is an undergraduate student at Stanford University. Her work appears in Gone Lawn, The Tusculum Review, and Ice Lolly Review, among others. She is a 2023 National YoungArts Finalist in Writing and a U.S. Presidential Scholars in the Arts Semifinalist. Visit her at miagracedavis.com.