Trish Petrakis ’18

Tell us a little about yourself!

I’ve lived many different lives at this point. I’m an author—which is crazy—and that version of me is confident. She enters a room and becomes someone I sometimes watch from the outside. Then there’s the version of me I know best: the girl, now woman, who’s been in therapy most of her life and still questions her self-worth behind closed doors. At one point, I was a business owner selling stationery I designed and licensed. Or maybe you want to hear about the version of me who survived childhood trauma, adoption, death, and the absolute hot mess that was me in my twenties. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m still learning who I am. I’m just Trish—a person trying to figure out this crazy world while seeing what I can make happen. I’m stubborn to the point that when someone tells me I can’t do something, my immediate response is, watch this. I wrote a book out of trauma, called out my bullies, and told the truth about people who probably would’ve preferred I kept quiet. But maybe I should stick to the normal way I’m probably supposed to answer this question… I’m Patricia. I go by Trish. I’m an artist, author, RIDICULOUSLY good-looking—I mean, storyteller—and a mom trying to figure out how to raise a daughter who believes in fairies and magic and remembers to always look for the helpers.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

Still hasn’t hit me yet. I never wanted to be a writer, and part of me still doesn’t want to be one. But when therapy wasn’t enough, running could only get me so far, and beating the living crap out of laundry piles became too much, I found my way to a keyboard. So, as silly as it sounds, I didn’t realize I wanted to be a writer. Writing found me at one of my darkest moments and gave me somewhere to put everything I didn’t know what to do with.

What’s your writing process? What inspires your writing?

Haha, nothing fancy. My writing process mostly consisted of sitting in front of my computer and writing until my husband eventually walked over, handed me some water, and suggested maybe it was time to call it for the day. At the time, I wrote because my traditional coping mechanisms weren’t working anymore, and my soul was screaming to release the anger, frustration, and pain I had pushed down for years. Writing Gel Pen Flowers was more of an explosion than inspiration. These days, though, inspiration looks different. It comes from those years of healing and this new chapter of my life—watching who I was and who I am now began to merge into something new. I was at the beach making a drizzle castle with my daughter when, boom, it came to me: That’s my next book. Inspiration also comes from my friends and husband. They’ve been encouraging me to write a children’s book, specifically one about how I can never seem to get a common phrase right. So, life. Life is my inspiration. Boom. Question answered.

What was the biggest thing you learned during your time as a Knight that you apply to your life today?

No one is on the same path and those who judge you can sit on a tack. Eek, did I say that out loud? There are so many experiences from my time at UCF, but this one will probably play in my brain in full color until my deathbed. It was December 7, 2018. 9 a.m. (gross), and I was standing in line to pick up my cap and gown. One thing you should know about me is that I had headphones in—but nothing was playing. It was how I felt safe, if that makes sense. Anyway, the guys in front of me were laughing about one of their friends who hadn’t graduated yet. One of them said something along the lines of, “Man, if I hit the six-year mark for my undergrad, I’d just quit.” And there I stood, headphones playing absolutely nothing, eavesdropping on their conversation and smiling. I had hit the six-year mark. Wow, what a loser, right? No. If anything, those six years showed me that I refused to give up, no matter what life threw at me. My mom died. I went through a ridiculous amount of trauma. And still, I made my way to school. I took the night buses. I survived on coffee and pistachio. I kept showing up. And eventually, I did the damn thing. I smiled when I heard those guys because I knew what it had taken for me to be standing there holding that cap and gown. It took me six years, but I didn’t quit. That’s probably the biggest thing being a Knight taught me: taking longer doesn’t mean you failed. Sometimes taking longer means you refused to give up. And to the friend who was also six years into getting his degree: get better friends and keep moving forward, bro.

What was a class or club at UCF that helped you grow as a writer?

Truthfully? None. I wasn’t a writer at UCF. I wasn’t studying writing, dreaming about publishing a book, or secretly working on a manuscript between classes. That version of me didn’t exist yet. But there was an art professor whose name, embarrassingly, I can’t remember, who gave me something I eventually carried into my writing. I was exhausted. My mom had died, I was working full time, doing an internship, and taking college classes at night. I rushed an art project, and she called me out on it. She pulled me aside and essentially told me, “This is natural talent. You just lack discipline.” Ouch. But she was right. I never forgot it. Her words eventually pushed me to paint every day for 365 days, and years later, when I found myself sitting in front of a computer writing Gel Pen Flowers, that lesson was still there. Talent—or a story worth telling—wasn’t enough. I had to have the discipline to actually finish it. So no, a UCF class didn’t necessarily teach me how to write. But a UCF professor taught me how to keep showing up for my creativity, and it turns out I needed that lesson before I ever became a writer.

Who are some of your favorite authors or books?

Augusten Burroughs, Sloane Crosley, and Stephen King. Augusten showed me that there were other people out there who had lived through crazy things and found a way to tell those stories. Sloane made me laugh so much through her experiences that I actually put the title of one of her books on my graduation cap. And Stephen King? He’s just a legend. I love the way his brain works and the way he tells a story. I love him enough that I went full literary tourist in Maine—visited his house, explored the cemetery that helped inspire Pet Sematary, and did it all while listening to ‘Salem’s Lot’ on audiobook. So apparently my taste is somewhere between trauma, humor, and horror. Which… honestly tracks.

If UCF had a time machine, what moment on campus would you go back to?

September 15, 2007. So what if I hadn’t graduated high school yet? I knew where I was going, and it was legendary. I remember the stadium feeling like it was literally going to give in beneath us, and I was terrified. When I broke into the stadium a year later at night, I remember standing there thinking, wow, this is such a cool place. Wait… what?

If your UCF experience were a meme, what would it be?

Elle Woods in the bunny outfit standing in a burning room saying, “What, like it’s hard?”

What are you currently working on right now?

Ugh, twist my arm, why don’t you… I’m currently working on my second book. What?! I know. Crazy, especially since I swore I would never write about my life again and still insist I’m not a writer. Apparently, I’m a dirty liar. After my daughter was born, I asked everyone in our family to write her a letter for her first birthday. The idea was that we’d save them, and she wouldn’t open them until she graduated high school. Well… my letter got a little out of hand. That letter slowly became Drizzle Castles, a book about motherhood, choosing softness over anger, and what happens when you raise a child in a world completely different from the one you grew up in. It’s about watching my daughter experience a childhood I sometimes can’t relate to—one where she feels safe enough to be loud, emotional, stubborn, imaginative, and completely herself—and realizing how much that has changed me, too. It’s not a book about giving my daughter the childhood I wish I’d had. She isn’t my second chance. She’s her own person, living her own story. But loving her has made me look back at the little girl I was with a softness I don’t think I knew how to give her before. Somewhere along the way, a letter to my daughter became a book about both of us. So, yeah. Apparently, I’m writing another book.

Anything else you want to share?

As someone who works in marketing, I am remarkably bad at promoting myself. So, if you want to follow along, just know it’s chaos—but the good kind. You can find me at patriciapetrakis.com or causing a ruckus on social media: @patriciapetrakis. Thanks for reading this far. Go Knights! Charge On! And apparently… go write a book or something.