Senior Spotlight: Georgina B. Parfitt

Ever since she was a little girl growing up in Norfolk, England, Georgina B. Parfitt ’13 knew she wanted to be a writer. “I used to write stories at school, and it was kind of the first thing that I got praised for or encouragement in, which was a special thing for me,” Parfitt says. “Fiction has always been part of my life. I knew when I got [to Harvard], I wanted to write and wanted to figure out how to do that here on campus.”

The English concentrator spent her senior year writing a creative thesis, “Edward’s House,” a novella in which 30 people, 10 years estranged, are reunited in a house memorable to all of them. “It was kind of an experiment for me because I’ve never written a long-form piece before. I’ve written short fiction and longer short fiction, so it was a challenge to put a plot in place that would keep someone reading it.” With a piece of work under her belt, Parfitt still has plans for her novella. “[Writing the thesis] was a very pressurized process, but now going back through the novella, I have ideas to make it a more publishable animal,” she says.

Parfitt’s talents extend beyond ink and paper. Since she performed in her first show her freshman year, theater has been part of her life. Last year, Parfitt directed her own play, “The Dragons are Dead,” in the Adams Pool Theater. This year, she will be the puppeteer for the play “Sea Change,” which will be put on at the Loeb Drama Center during Arts First. “What I’m trying to do at the moment is realize how my theater life and my writing life can be put together in my career,” she says. An avid poetry reader and film watcher, Parfitt draws on other areas of art to improve her writer’s sense. “I always felt the craft of writing—the kind of chemistry that happens when you put some word next to another word and something happens. I try to put my experiences with different disciplines into my fiction.”

—Staff writer Adabelle U. Ekechukwu can be reached at aekechukwu14@college.harvard.edu.