Editor's note: The Eastern Echo staff meets regularly with interesting people on and off campus. Engage in those conversations with us through our Q&A reports.
A part-time lecturer at Eastern Michigan University, Gates Wesley teaches creative writing and composition. She has been teaching at Eastern for two years. Wesley earned a bachelor’s degree in communications in 2019 at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids and a Master of Arts in 2023 from Eastern. She is working on multiple writing projects alongside her teaching.
Q: What can you tell me about the book you're writing?
A: I have actually three different ideas for books that are going on right now. It's so, so complicated. The one that I'm actively working on — I'll start with that one — isn’t actually a novel, but it is a collection of poems, short stories and creative essays. They are inspired by the 22 major arcana of the tarot. I don’t know if you're familiar with tarot cards at all, but some people view it as witchcraft. In my personal opinion, it's not like a divination. It's not like, oh, I'm going to tell the future, but it’s like the cards just help you access thoughts and feelings that you already have.
So, there’s 22 major arcana cards, and the idea is that I will also have an illustrated deck that I am working on that will be paired with the book. The idea is you draw a card, and then you read that story along with that card, because I don't want it to be read front to back. I want it to be read so multiple people can read the same thing, but you read it in a different order and have a different experience that way.
That's kind of the big one. I haven't worked on it in a while, but it's the one that's the most complete. The rest of them are just like splats of paint on a wall, or in my case, just random words in a Google Doc that I'm like, I'll worry about that later.
Q: What challenges have you faced so far in the writing process?
A: I get paralyzed by writing really, really easily. What I mean by that is, if I don't think the idea is worthy enough to write down, I just don't write it down, which is very counterintuitive to what I teach my students. I tell them I'd rather they write something really, really, really crappy down on a piece of paper than not write anything at all. But I struggle with that.
Q: How would you describe your writing style?
A: I am what I like to call a binge writer. I’ll have a drought of writing for two or three months, then I will write every single day for hours. I'm possessed by it, and then again, I'll have this drought. While it works for me right now, if I ever want to pursue a career beyond teaching and I want to be an actual writer, I'm going to have to actually figure out a writing process that's consistent and actually keeps me accountable. But right now, it works for my lifestyle cause when I'm teaching, I don't have time to write, let alone think about writing. I'm just focused on lesson planning, student work, leaving feedback and all of those things.
Q: When you get stuck, how do you find a flow again?
A: A lot of what I do is I find things that are art, whether it's text or movies or film or music. I find something that motivates me and inspires me to create my own art, and I will create something in response to that. I’ve been really interested in Westerns lately, and I was kind of having a really big writing drought, and I was really, really struggling. I was like, you know what, I'm just going to write a crappy Western because that's better than not writing anything. So, I just kind of wrote my own take on a Western story.
Q: What is that Western story like?
A: It was just fun and playful, and I didn't have expectations. Then, when it was done, I was like, oh, I could maybe get this published. This isn't that bad. Usually that's what I do. I'll just be inspired by something, whether it's art or whether it's just an experience, and I’ll tell myself, well, just write about that.
Q: What are you focusing on now for inspiration?
A: The big one lately has been [that] we live in the middle of the woods. We have a lot of wildlife encounters, so I've been writing a lot of creative essays. Something will happen — like, we had a hummingbird that flew into our window, but it was still alive. So, we rescued it and took it to a bird sanctuary, and to this day, I don't know whether or not that bird survived. Because they told us, yeah, you can call us, and we’ll give you an update, but ... I’d rather lie to myself and tell myself that that bird is still alive than call and get confirmation. In my mind, that bird is still alive and is loving its life. Then I was thinking about it, like, oh, that's such a rich topic overall to write about.
Q: How do you balance writing, teaching and having time for yourself?
A: Oh my gosh, I don't. Especially this semester with taking on two classes two weeks into the semester already. The biggest sacrifice is my writing. I'm just not writing, but if I'm not writing then I'm reading. So, I find that if I'm reading work ... I still feel kind of that itch to scratch, so I don't lose my momentum.
I have to say no to things that I don’t want to say no to. ... If I go do this thing with my friends, am I going to regret it because I didn't grade as much as I wanted to? There's a lot of sacrifice this semester, but typically the ideal is to teach three classes. If I can teach three classes, then I have enough time for school, myself and my own writing. Four classes usually results in sacrificing one of those other options. But it's only temporary, right? Semesters are only 15 weeks, so I tell myself this isn't forever. There will be a light at the end of the tunnel. That's usually how I get through it.
Q: What is the most rewarding part of teaching creative writing?
A: You'll meet a lot of people who are teachers because it's their side gig, and they’re writers first and teachers second. I'm the opposite. I am an educator at heart. I always wanted to be in some sort of teaching role. I thought it was high school, and then I found out very quickly that that wasn’t the case. What’s crazy is I didn't start in creative writing. I started teaching composition, and I loved teaching composition. Even though students don't enjoy it, I just love teaching writing.
Then I taught my first creative writing class. The thing that I find the most rewarding is that students come in all on the same level, like the same threshold, and by the end of the semester, they have all grown into their own as individual writers and are completely different. ... By the end of the semester, everything is so unique and so interesting. My favorite thing is I get to watch them grow and develop into themselves rather than into what they think the academic world wants them to be.
Q: Do you find yourself often inspired by your students?
A: All the time. All the freaking time. Again, it definitely happens later on in the semester once they've kind of gathered some more skills and methods that they didn't have before. But yeah, I will read something by a student, and I will be like, well, now I need to go and write something. Like I said earlier, when I'm stuck, I will go find something that inspires me, and sometimes it's a student work. Not necessarily copying, but it's like, wow, what a cool take. What a cool spin. What would that look like if I did it? So yeah, I'm inspired by my students constantly. It's amazing, and probably another reason why it's such a rewarding career.
Q: What is one thing you want students to remember when writing?
A: Well, it is challenging, and at least for me, it is a very spiritual thing. What I mean by that is — I’m learning this with my therapist — there is this idea of self-energy, which is actually rooted in a lot of cognitive and psychological science, involving parts of the brain and how they engage. Sometimes what happens is, we feel almost possessed by the creative act we are doing, whether it's music, whether it's writing, whether it's drawing. Not everybody can access that part of the brain intuitively; however, I believe that every student can learn the skills to get there. Ultimately, I want my students to realize writing can be challenging, but while you're in the process of actively writing, you should maybe almost access this spiritual part of yourself that feels almost possessive or feels really inherently rewarding while you're doing the act.
Oftentimes when I’m writing, I'm not thinking about things like, oh, how am I going to make this literally complex, or how am I going to use poetic devices here. I just have a story to tell. I'm going to write it. Then I'm going to get it on the page, and we’re gonna go from there. I want my students to occupy that almost self-energetic part of the brain where it's just like, I'm just writing, and it's doing something cognitively that is engaging, rewarding, challenging but also life-changing in a way.
Wesley has an office in Pray-Harrold Room 612S. Contact her by email at gwesley1@emich.edu or by phone at 734-487-4220.
Editor's note: Writer Lyndsay Tusen was a student of Wesley during the fall 2025 semester. This Q&A interview was conducted Oct. 1, 2025.
