Meet Our New Intern: Gabriel L'Heureux

As a kid, I had a thirst for knowledge, as well as an incredibly overactive imagination. I would frequently race through books, finding that I finished them in less than a day. The library was my best friend for the longest time. I could read as much as I wanted and would not hear the complaints from my parents about wanting more expensive books that I would race through. Regardless, I was still a huge fan of the Scholastic Book Fair every time I would see it. Even if everything was super unaffordable there for my family, I would always get super excited just looking through all of the different things they were selling.

A very obvious difference between my older brother and I was our attitude towards reading and books. When he would receive a punishment or a timeout, he would be shunned to his room and only given books as entertainment. When I would receive a punishment or a timeout, however, I would have all my books taken away. My books and reading were my main sources of entertainment as a kid. They took me into other worlds, other realities, where I could forget my own existence for a while and step into the words on the page.

My love for reading extended to writing as well. In second grade, I wrote my first short story and submitted it for a contest my elementary school was holding across all the grade levels. In hindsight, I fully understand why I only received a participation ribbon; I had written with Crayola markers on copy paper to tell my story. In addition to that, I drew pictures depicting some scenes of the story. The rough plot was that society had started to collapse because of the zombie apocalypse; however, the protagonist was able to save the world using the power of peanut butter. They realized that if they put peanut butter in the zombies’ mouths, then the zombies would be smacking their mouths too much to bite someone. As I said previously, I had quite the overactive imagination.

Despite this love for reading and writing, it took me several years to fully realize that this was my passion. For the majority of my life, I had planned to be a medical doctor because my goal, ever since I was very little, was to help people. In my kid mind, the best way to do that would be to become a medical doctor. It took a while, but I eventually realized that I do not excel at STEM in the slightest, nor do I have a passion for it. I thought about everything and finally clearly saw that I could help people in so many other professions. After giving it a lot of thought, I realized that I want to become a public librarian.

Coupling my love of reading and writing with all of the experiences I’ve had while I have been a student at Berry College—working at the campus Writing Center, presenting my research on a panel at the 2026 SWCA (Southeastern Writing Center Association) Conference, being the President of the campus queer advocacy club (Listen) for the 2025-26 academic year, being a freshman mentor for the class of 2029, and more—I have learned where my true passions lie. I want to help people find the information they need or find the world they need to escape into. Librarians are more important now than ever, and I want to aid the effort to bring people together to form a real community.

Gabriel L’Heureux (he/they) is an intern at Sundress Publications. He grew up in Illinois, but he has lived in Georgia since age 11 and never left. He is almost done with his BA in Creative Writing with a minor in Women’s & Gender Studies from Berry College. He is applying to graduate schools with the aim to start his MLS program in the fall of 2027. He has a Siamese cat named Mochi, who is a haughty little princess. He is known for writing poetry and short fiction that frequently evokes fear or melancholy—his work thrives in the dark. He reads any and all types of literature, as long as it piques his interest.