Students tell their COVID stories in new book

By Jim Sabataso
Staff Writer
CASTLETON, Vt. — A new book tells the story of the pandemic through the eyes of college students.

“COVID Chronicles: College Students Navigate Pandemic Life” is a series of personal essays written by Castleton University students and compiled by CU media and communications instructor Professor David Blow.

The book began last fall as a blog when Blow asked students in his media writing class to begin submitting bi-weekly blog posts about their experiences during the coronavirus pandemic.

“The whole thought of teaching through a screen for a whole semester … was a little daunting and didn’t sound terribly fun,” said Blow. “I was trying to think of things that might, at least, foster good writing.”

In Blow’s media writing class, students get to try their hand at a variety of writing styles — screenplays, PSAs, press releases — but he always starts the year with the personal essay, which is what the blog came to embody.

“I thought, something like a ‘COVID Chronicles’ blog would be, at least, a chance for them to kind of purge their souls a little bit,” he said.

Early on, Blow realized he had tapped into something special.

“There was a lot of power in what they were writing,” he said. “It just kind of perked my soul a little bit.”

Inspired by his students’ words, Blow decided to self-publish a compilation of essays in a 110-page book now available on Amazon.

According to Blow, the book will be available locally at Phoenix Books in Rutland starting Monday.

“I just felt it had to be done. And I felt they needed a little bit of a win,” he said, noting that any profits from the book will be used to create a scholarship for students.

Across 18 chapters, students share personal, firsthand accounts of the pandemic — their fears and anxieties, their dark moments of isolation and bright spots of hope, feelings of lost time and missed opportunities, and, for some, the serenity found in unexpected solitude.

Lily Doton, a second-year student majoring in Media & Communications, characterized her experience writing the essays as “cathartic,” saying it gave her the opportunity to work through some of the feelings she was having.

“I think for me, my experience was a little bit different because I am Korean,” she said. “A lot of what I was seeing on the news and on social media was people who look like me being attacked and harassed. That was, and still is, on the forefront of my mind.”

In one essay, Doton, who was raised in Vermont, noted the rise in casual racism against Asian people as the pandemic spread.

“Maybe it’s just my paranoia, but I swear I can feel everyone’s eyes on me, watching me warily as I walk into the grocery store fully masked. As if I pose more of a threat than the white people coming up to Vermont from New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts,” she wrote.

Blow noted in the introduction to Doton’s chapter that her essay about experiencing intolerance inspired him to publish the book.

In another essay, Doton described the joy she felt when her sister had a baby last fall, writing, “I’m not sure when I’ll be able to hold him, unmasked, and freely kiss his forehead, but any disappointment I may have over that is washed away when I look at the pictures Annie has sent me. … In a time that has been extremely dark, it feels like he is the light.”

Doton said she didn’t expect her work to be published, but is excited about it nonetheless.

“I’m glad that it gets to be shared with other people. I hope that people take the time to read it,” she said.

Since completing Blow’s class, Doton has continued writing. She has contributed to the Castleton Spartan student newspaper, and one of her stories was published in VT Digger.

“I didn’t see myself as much of a storyteller prior to taking this class, but I think ‘COVID Chronicles’ helped me find a voice in writing that I’ve used to work through other difficult feelings,” she wrote in additional comments about the book provided by Blow.

Junior Aris Sherwood, who is editor of The Spartan, said while it started out like any other assignment, writing for the blog became a form of therapy during a “scary time.”

“It made me think about and process my emotions and my thoughts and my feelings throughout the course of the pandemic,” she said. “It was very therapeutic to write and to hear other people’s stories and know that I’m not alone.”

In one of Sherwood’s essays, she lamented lost friendships she fears she may never get back.

“If I had known our hug goodbye would have been our last hug, I would’ve held on just a little tighter,” she wrote. “Some of my closest friends have graduated, and I’ll never be able to see them the same way again. I never got closure from that.”

Elsewhere, she pondered how time seemed to lose all meaning in the early weeks of the pandemic.

“Does anyone remember April?” she asked. “I’m seriously asking. Looking back, it feels like April didn’t even exist. Like I closed my eyes one March day, and opened them to find myself here, writing this in September.

But Sherwood also focused on the bright spots, like finding a summer job after fearing she wouldn’t and the happiness she found at her sisters’ wedding, which turned into a family only backyard affair.

“It wasn’t what we had planned. But we made do, and we made beautiful memories in the midst of hardship,” she wrote.

While Sherwood, like Doton, didn’t expect her essays would see a wider audience than her classmates, she’s glad more people will be reading them.

“College students are going through a really hard time, and I don’t think people recognize that,” she said, adding that first-person accounts like these will stand as a historical document of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Blow agrees.

“When the next pandemic hits, it’ll be a neat little snapshot in time,” he said.

Blow said he hopes the book gives people a glimpse into what college students experienced during the past year.

“I hate hearing about all the privilege and entitlement in college kids. These guys lost a ton,” he said. “I hope that people read this and take away some of that and, just maybe, have a better understanding of what it did to our young people.”

jim.sabataso @rutlandherald.com