J-School student publishes poetry collection

Fourth-year journalism student Sia Shete released her poetry collection titled In the Gray (external link)  this year—it’s her first published collection which brings the words from her notes app into the hands of readers.

“It's stuff that I've been writing since I was 12 years-old, so it’s really intimate parts of my life,” she said. “A vision that I had in my life to be a published author has come true.”

Shete began taking an interest in poetry when she was eleven. She was challenged by her dad, a poet himself, to put together a poem and fell in love right after.

“It’s a form of expression that doesn't limit me,” Shete said.

In the Gray is a collection of poems Shete has dedicated to her grandfather, who passed away in 2020. The book’s main goal is to help people unpack their grief and not let it consume them. While some of them are tied to deeply personal parts of her life, Shete said many of her poems don’t have any meanings.

“I just love the fact that I get to write and people get to interpret,” she said. “People have emailed me and told me, ‘this is how I interpreted your poetry.’ And that was beautiful because I would never look at it from that perspective.”

Shete’s publishing process began with collecting some of the poems she’d written in her notes app into a manuscript. She said she tried not to edit the poems as much as possible, to keep their raw meaning. In January 2023, she sent emails to dozens of publishers until one company from Montreal got back to her.

“I was shocked and so happy at that moment,” she said. 

After multiple rounds of edits, her collection reached readers last year. She celebrated the book launch with a picnic with her closest friends, where she read out a few of her works.

Shete said the poetry collection was well received, especially by fellow students in the journalism program. 

As for future publications, Shete has already begun the work.

“The next book would be a photographic poetry book with original photos from me and poetry that relates to those photos,” she said.

You can purchase a copy of her poetry collection here (external link) .