Prof. Cody Klippenstein discusses debut novel with Creative Writing Club
By Lucy Flack ’27
When I saw that Visiting Assistant Professor Cody Klippenstein was hosting a talk with Macalester’s Creative Writing Club on the ins and outs of writing fantasy and her debut novel, I couldn’t have been more delighted. Prof. Klippenstein was my instructor for Introduction to Creative Writing and has since become one of the friendliest faces in the department for me. Her and I often get lost on our own fantastical tangents discussing craft, and so ahead of the talk, I was greatly looking forward to hearing about her own process of craft and a bit about her new novel.
She described her debut novel, titled Where You End and I Begin, as a dark academia fantasy, with elements of gothic and supernatural horror. The novel is currently being shopped around to different publishers by herself and her agent. Prof. Klippenstein recounted that genre and identity were two driving forces and inspirations in writing it.
She was inspired particularly by Guillermo Del Toro’s manipulation of genre and the role that it can play in “holding a mirror to our world and society.” In this project, she leans into genre rather than away from it, calling it a “ready-made language” through use of tropes, fantastical caveats, etc.
But often, fantasy worlds closely reflect our own, even if everything is vastly different. It is common that fantasy worlds, while transporting us to new places, remind us of home—both the struggles we encounter and the comforts. We can see ourselves and our identities reflected in an otherwise very different world. Prof. Klippenstein said that she often turned to the question “How does it feel to be me?” while exploring the marginalized identity and its role, both in fantasy and in her novel. In leaning into the speculative fiction/fantasy genre, Prof. Klippenstein said, you can use its vocabulary and genre to subvert it. We’ll be able to see how her debut novel, once picked up by a publisher (fingers crossed for you, Cody!), will explore the role of marginalized identity in the fantasy genre as well as have fun with ghost possession, a young woman in an old lady’s body (think Howl’s Moving Castle), and gothic horror elements.
Overall, the talk was great fun, and myself and other students were able to learn a lot from Professor Klippenstein and her methods of writing. After the Q&A panel portion, the talk opened up to questions from the students there—chiefly the members of the Creative Writing Club—where we continued to ask her about craft, how to be mindful with representation, writing softwares, and more.