Brandon Alvarado, a PV senior, has always been a fan of writing. He is one of the select few seniors participating in a senior project this year. For his project, he is writing a book of personal essays entitled “Please Fall In Love With Me (And Other High School Wishes).”  One of his essays will even be published exclusively on The Smoke Signal, before the book is published. 

Q: What is your book about?

A: It’s a book of personal essays, sort of like a memoir, but it’s a bunch of essays based off of my experiences, where I talk about things from sexuality to friends to grades to my hopes for the future and my experiences now throughout high school.

Q: When did you decide you wanted to do a senior project?

A: I decided I wanted to do a senior project, well I was thinking about it a couple months before it was offered and I didn’t know if I wanted to do it for a while, to be honest. Didn’t know if I wanted to do a book, or if I wanted to do stand up, or nothing at all because I didn’t know if I could take on writing a book because writing a book is a big project and I didn’t know if I wanted to stick with the project for a while, but it became a passion project, something I loved doing. So at the very last minute I decided I was going to do it because it was a great opportunity.

Q: When did you get the idea for it?

A: I remember always wanting to in my high school career, especially towards the end. I love writing about my experiences and when I first heard of the senior projects, it was the first idea I had in my mind where I could write about my experiences and do it in a book.

Q: Is it going to be published?

A: Yes! It is going to be published on Amazon, and then from Amazon it will be expanded to Barnes and Noble, libraries, stuff like that. Hopefully, it should be published by the end of May.

Q: What made you choose Rawson as your mentor?

A: I had Rawson last year for the Honors Satire class and I always love hearing his perspective. I think he is– and I think he would agree­– that he’s a very eccentric guy. It’s fun to work with him and hear his opinions and since I’m writing a book, especially with humorous essays, I thought he would enjoy it and that’s why I wanted to take on this project with him. All of the teachers are great and I’ve loved so many of them, but I just think he is the right fit for this.

Q: What are you planning to study in college?

A: I want to pursue stand-up and writing. I’m studying Media Culture and Communications in college, so I can maybe go somewhere in the media industry, but we’ll see where it takes me.