Imagination is the purest skill for creative writing. Sacramento City College English Prof. Eve Imagine published her first novel, “Body in Script,” a book she hopes will resonate with readers’ emotions.
Imagine’s novel, “Body in Script,” follows Chava and Stephen, a couple navigating life after Chava awakens from thoracic surgery and is now in a body that she is learning to live in. The story takes place over the years of the couple’s life.
“It’s really a book about life, you know, and life lived so, you know, not plot-driven — only character-driven,” Imagine said.
Imagine expresses that her main struggle with writing “Body in Script” was finalizing it and finding time to work on it as well as be a professor.
“People all the time were telling me over the years, ‘just put it out there, just finish,’’ and I just knew it can’t be rushed. I don’t like it yet, I’m not gonna put out a book that I wouldn’t want to read,” Imagine said.
English Department Chair Carrie Marks reflected on how Imagine’s publication of her first novel could help her students.
“I think she’ll be better equipped to help her students learn to put themselves into their writing too because she’s kind of understood it first as a writer, and so then she can teach it to them as well,” Marks said.
Although “Body in Script” is a fictional book, real-life experiences, conversations and people all helped inspire Imagine’s writing. The first chapter of the book heavily revolves around Imagine’s own personal experiences.
“I was living and then writing my story as I would live it,” Imagine said.
Growing up, Imagine said she was a natural reader and wanted to write a lot of fiction, though she was also very critical of her writing. This fear of criticism from others led to Imagine not joining the school’s newspaper, which she regrets.
“I was very scared of being criticized for my writing. I just felt very embarrassed, so I never did school newspaper,” Imagine said.
After graduating high school, Imagine attended San Francisco State University for her bachelor’s degree in English. She then went to get her teaching credential in English at Sacramento State. Imagine then began teaching English at Roseville High School.
A year later, Imagine took a summer creative writing class at City College for her professional development. Imagine ended that class with the first draft of chapter one of “Body in Script” done. It boosted her confidence as a writer and pushed her to earn her creative writing master’s degree at UC Davis. After graduating from UC Davis, Imagine began her job as a professor at City College the following summer.
As a professor, Imagine wants to leave a positive impact on people. When she was young she did not have a mentor, so she wants to be that for other people.
“I didn’t have a mentor that said, ‘hey, you’re a good writer, maybe try the newspaper.’ So I try to be that for other people [and] that really it makes such an impact, I think, when you just have that one person that believes in you enough to say you should try it,” Imagine said.
One of Imagine’s students, Shanica McAlister, who is majoring in accounting, comments on Imagine’s love for teaching and empathy for others.
“The many strengths I see in Eve Imagine as my professor are communication, empathy, creativity, active listening, integrity, fairness and her passion for teaching,” McAlister said.
Since publishing “Body in Script,” Imagine hopes to expose her book to more readers and sell it at local bookstores. With current goals to start building a WordPress website. Despite struggling with health limitations, Imagine wants to continue getting her book out into the world.
“I [have] gotten some really, really wonderful feedback from the first group of people who have bought it and read it, and so I’m building some confidence, and I just hope for the future that I can get enough people to know this book exists and for more people to read it to buy it to read it,” Imagine said.
