Gazing at the moon one night, UO junior Francesca Varela started contemplating the idea of a nocturnal society, where the sun had gotten too strong and people only came out at night. Following that vision and her penchant for writing, she found herself grasping a copy of her first published novel, Call of the Sun Child.
“I felt like I had something to say also, I wanted to bring people’s attention back to the natural world and help them break free of what society is telling them and have them think for themselves more,” Francesca said.
The environmental studies and creative writing major first heard her own call to nature after a year-long encounter with a bard owl that sat on a branch in her backyard. According to Francesca, the owl — perched with his back facing her and his head all the way around — calmly locked his pitch-black colored eyes with her own.
“I had never looked at a wild animal before and I felt something change inside of me. After that, every time it was there I went outside and watched it,” Francesca said. “It was some primal feeling. Even my dog felt it, at that exact moment she started growling.”
Since then, Francesca’s awareness and interest for the natural world has increased, fueling much of her writing. Although Call of the Sun Child is her first published novel, Francesca recalls writing her first piece about the planet Neptune in the third grade. Later that same year, the nine-year-old created a 36-page “little story” about a snail.
Francesca’s mother, Traci Varela, says that she would always find her daughter playing in the woods behind their home with a journal in hand, “that’s her solace.”
The West-Linn high school graduate describes her writing trademark as descriptive, illustrative and poetic, which she finds funny since she doesn’t like writing poetry. Throughout her time in college, Francesca believes the exposure to a diverse set of ideas has also developed her writing in a more mature and well-rounded way.
“Francesca’s prose is both careful and imaginative,” Francesca’s creative writing instructor Sarah Blakley-Cartwright said. ” She never asks a reader to work without ample pay-off.”
Still, the soft-spoken writer restricts herself from sharing any of her work until it is finished in fear of jinxing it. In the case of her novel, it took Francesca about six months of writing before she showed it to her most trusted confidant: her mother. Although she tries not to force anything, Francesca pushes herself to write something each day, even if it’s at least a sentence.
Since finishing Call of the Sun Child, Francesca has written another book and has an idea for another novel, which she doesn’t plan on starting until this summer. The young novelist admires work with messages behind them and strives to do the same, for her it’s usually to reconnect with the natural world.
“Once that connection is made, people will learn to care again,” Francesca said. “Once they learn to care, change can happen and we can change the negative aspects of the way we treat the environment today.”