A Co-Author of 30 Books at Princeton
What is it like being a 30-book author at Princeton?
Quite strange. Perhaps historic. I came to Princeton for a couple of reasons: a) safety, b) academics.
What do I mean by safety? Princeton, both the university and the town, are very safe. While I was considering applying to transfer to Ivy League schools, making sure I was in a safe area was a high priority. What was the point of undergoing a rigorous and prestigious education if I ended up dead? Columbia was scratched off the list. While the school was gated, I’d never visited New York City at the time and didn’t trust myself to be able to navigate its dangers. Yale was also contentious as the city surrounding it, New Haven, had an ill reputation when it came to crime. I wanted a place where I could focus on my studies almost to the exclusion of all else. Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell, Harvard, Brown, and a few others came to mind.
I was especially set on Princeton due to what I had heard had been dubbed “the orange bubble.” It seemed safe enough, and now that I’m a student here, I believe I made the right choice.
On to the second reason I chose Princeton: the academics. I was hellbent on studying comparative literature when I first arrived. I knew I wanted to study Japanese; I wanted to delve into East Asian cultures and, most importantly, the literature. I wanted to compare Japanese literature to English literature more specifically because I’d noticed that there was a difference in how English stories unfolded versus Japanese. Which one I think is better is contentious, but I grew up on Japanese anime and have always marveled at the sheer scale, depth, and breadth of Japanese creativity and imagination. Needless to say, I wanted to honor that by learning the language and translating their four-act story structure or kishotenketsu into English.
Therefore, I believed I was set on becoming a professor in comparative literature with a specific focus on the divergence and differences in story structures between East and West. I was accepted to my preferred school, transferred, moved in, and began my first semester. I took Japanese along with a whole host of other classes, and… things didn’t work out as I planned. I epically wiped out. It didn’t help that I was also writing books alongside my Princeton courses, but I ended up dropping Japanese due to a variety of factors—stress, pressure, and culture shock.
Stress due to the academic rigor. I was taking four classes, two of which were history, one a writing seminar, and the fourth elementary Japanese. The history classes required 150 pages of reading each week for each class which was standard for Princeton history classes but not something I was really aware of going in. Originally, I was taking a translation course, but I dropped it after realizing that I didn’t have a second language to translate from or into. I enrolled in a history course that was more or less straightforward during the add/drop period--the first two weeks of classes where Princeton students “shop around” for classes to add or drop from their course load. I added on a second history class, not thinking it would make much of a difference.
It did. Tremendously.
I was reading 350 pages per week in total for my history courses and add on a reading requirement of around 50 pages per week for my writing seminar and I was being broken by the burden of reading 400 pages on a weekly basis. It was rough.
Add Japanese on top of all that? Forget it. The course load was breaking me. During all that, I was working on a poetry book that I absolutely refused to stop writing. Once I commit to a book, I have an ironclad rule to finish it to the end, especially with poetry books. Fiction, I often pause depending on the harshness or hostility of the environment I find myself in, and academia is not a great place to be spacey with fiction. Often, when I write fiction, I become emotionally fragile, socially distant, and mentally drifty, which means I space out a lot and have trouble focusing on the world around me since I’m spending the majority of my time writing in another world. I’ve done it before in the military and at my previous university, Boise State. Not a good look. It wasn’t very fun either, especially when greater priorities reared their ugly head when I was happily writing.
Anyway, I decided to drop Japanese before midterms hit when I felt the pressure would mount and I would be squeezed by the tests slamming in from all my classes. It was a demoralizing blow, and for the rest of the Fall 2023 semester, I lost a lot of purpose. I continued to write books; I wrote two poetry books in the semester and published them, and then turned around and co-authored and published a joint essay book with my brother right after the semester ended. He finished his sixth chess book, and we published it. I followed up with my tenth poetry book before the start of the Spring 2024 semester.
The culture shock aspect of why I’d dropped Japanese actually had less to do with the language—I was already familiar with the basics and could read and write the first two writing systems, katakana, and hiragana. No, culture shock had to do with Princeton itself. By that, I mean a number of factors: the people, the massive campus, the panopticon environment (I feel most campuses are like this), and… the energy tax required to keep up with everything at once.
Really, I shouldn’t have even attempted to write books during all of that, especially when trying to learn a new language. In part, I overwhelmed myself, and in part, I underestimated Princeton. Then, there come the extracurriculars I was also involved in: the Nassau Literary Review and Business Today clubs. Nassau Literary Review, or NassauLit for short, is the second oldest undergraduate literary magazine in the United States, with the first being the Yale Literary Magazine, which is, of course, at Yale. Business Today is a prestigious club focused on connecting undergraduates with C-suite executives and is especially known for its annual International Conferences, which kick off every fall semester. I was part of the 49th Annual Conference, and it was a very eye-opening and exciting experience. It was also my first time in New York City, and it taught me that the city was not all that terrifying as long as you entered and left with the group you came with.
All in all, what’s it like being a 30-book author at Princeton? Rewarding, exciting, and sometimes magical. My school affords me a wealth of opportunities and does its best, in my opinion, to really push me, not just academically, mentally, and socially, but also encourages me to actively pursue the fields that I’m most suited for. I had a strange draw to finance due to this intense rush in the fall semester to catch the attention of big financial firms like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs. I had the privilege to participate in JP Morgan’s Careered.YOU Academy and Goldman Sachs’ Possibilities Summit, which were two virtual programs designed to aid and introduce those of diverse backgrounds to the world of finance. They were intensely rigorous in their demand for consistency and participation but very fulfilling. They taught me that the financial sector may not suit me and that I’m likely more academically inclined to the fields of publishing or academia itself.
The career center at Princeton put me in direct contact with Audible for a Princeternship, which is a short winter internship that allows students to shadow the work of alumni at their jobs and experience a “day in the life” of someone in their position. I gained insight into the wide array of Audible’s departments and different careers within the company; some jobs I didn’t even know existed. It really allowed me to take away new knowledge and a different perspective on the publishing industry.
Following that, during the winter session, which is the two-week period before the start of spring semester classes where students can return to campus for a wide variety of informational sessions, trips, and activities—I went to Penguin Random House and The New York Times in New York City. I was stunned by the experience as I wandered the hallowed corridors of two giants in the world of publishing and journalism that I’d only seen from far away on the other side of the country. I widened my understanding of the world of publishing to an alarming degree, gaining insight into how editors worked with authors and how authors were booked for public speaking gigs, among many other nuances. In the New York Times, I walked up and down the red stairs of their expensive offices, toured the wall of their Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, and peeked into their in-house museum.
I suppose I should say: Princeton equals opportunities. In the short time, I’ve been at this school, I’ve learned so much, foremost of which is not to bite off more than you can chew in your courseload, to understand that you may have to take a step back to step forward on your idealized career path and that it’s alright to explore the right field for you. While wealth is wonderful, it isn’t everything and is certainly not worth the misery of feeling lopsided in a place you don’t belong.
While I won’t be pursuing finance in the future, I’ll be exploring the world of consulting, academia, and publishing. Let’s see how it goes.
Hello! We’re D.J. Hoskins
We are Davena and Jason Hoskins, co-authors of 30+ books and siblings who write under the pseudonym D.J. Hoskins. Three years apart and in our twenties, we have been fascinated by stories from a young age. Davena is a student attending Princeton University, and Jason attends Georgetown University.
