My freshman year, I had Mr. Coogan for English 9, and we worked on Romeo and Juliet. While we were going through the movie, reading a few scenes and taking notes, and we had an assignment that consisted of choosing a scene from the play and altering it. Altering in this sense was like, “A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet” into “Yo, rose still fire even if ion know what it’s name is.”

Or, “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” into, “My Dearest Love Romeo, where has thou gone off to?”

Changes were to be made, some changed the story into knights in the past, or thugs in current times. We were free to make changes as we saw fit, and my idea was to make it Theater.

Ramona and Jessica is a story I’ve recently gotten back into writing. It’s a high school performing Romeo and Juliet, but queer. I’m still working on an outline, plotting scenes and finalizing how a character acts or thinks. I’ve had this idea for 4 years now, and I will most likely put Mr. Coogan on my thank you list at the start of a book I hope to share to more people.

It’s still a rough story, and I’ve got a friend who is more than willing to read scenes for me and give me pointers. Aurelin is a very great friend of mine, and I thank them immensely for being here with me as I write what I pray becomes a published book.

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