It is always uplifting to hear success stories from recent graduates, especially when graduation is approaching and the panic of failure starts to set in. What can be even more gratifying is hearing success stories from graduates of yours truly, Sacramento State.

On April 11, for the final day and event of the Festival of the Arts 2015, Elison Alcovendaz, Margie Fuston and Tamer Mostafa came to do the traditional alumni reading in the Library Gallery.

Alcovendaz graduated from Sac State in 2012 with a master’s degree in creative writing, winning five Bazzanella awards as a student. He is an editor at the literary magazines “From Sac” and “Under the Gum Tree.” Currently he works for the state of California, but always fitting in the time for his creative works.

“When I was in the program it was so easy to write, I had deadlines all the time, people around you were like minded,” said Alcovendaz. “[…] For me trying to maintain that creativity is really hard, which I have to do, if it’s something you love you got to do whatever it takes.”

Fuston also has a master’s in creative writing from Sac State, graduated in 2013, and is currently teaching poetry at William Jessup University. She has been published in a number of publications, a couple being “Gargoyle” and “Writers Digest.”

Mostafa graduated from Sac State in 2011 with a bachelor in English with a concentration in poetry, after going to UC Davis to peruse a master in English with a concentration in poetry in 2014. He has over thirty published works, a couple being “Stone Highway Review” and “Confrontation.”

All three alumni’s had Dr. Joshua McKinney as a professor and all directly mentioned he was a big influence in their writing and careers at Sac State. Elison and Fuston both started off their readings with pieces they wrote in McKinney’s classes as well as ending with works they have been writing since graduating.

“Before I went to Sac State I had an idea of what poetry was and it was a bullshit idea […] it was like love poems or “emo” poems, pretty much what you find at a Barnes and Noble, for the most part,” said Mostafa. “You know the first class I took at Sac State was with him [McKinney].”

Mostafa talked about how McKinney’s teachings were a direct influence in his writing and how he would be on campus from his Stockton commute early in the morning before his first class and would just go in and talk to McKinney.

“I would just go in and talk to him [McKinney], talk to him about poetry, talk to him about life,” said Mostafa.

The most captivating part of the three alumni’s was the difference in their writing styles and the exploratory work they shared in genres like flash fiction and prose poetry. Fuston’s work dabbles into religion as well as referencing technology and how it affects society.

“I was raised in the church, still in the church,” said Fuston. “I was actually just telling someone that it didn’t influence my writing that much and then getting together my poems I was like, ‘Yeah, it really does influence my writing quite a bit, even the ones that don’t seem like it on the surface.’”

Alcovendaz writes a lot of entertaining stories, capturing the audience’s attention with humor and relatable situations. He is currently working on a novel that has a series of flash fiction pieces that are all a new take on stories like “Harry Potter””, “Twilight” and the “Hunger Games”.

“I try to notice everything,” said Alcovendaz. “[…] If I hear someone’s conversation, my wife hates this, but I actually stop and just listen, it could be like dialogue in a story.”

Mostafa focuses a lot on father son and mother son relationships, as well as exploring the world of being two contrasting races. He predominantly writes poetry but has experimented with fiction as well.

“For me any type of art that you write is a process and you struggle with it as you go along and for now I just haven’t put in that time for fiction or for non fiction,” said Mostafa.

Mostafa, Alcovendaz and Fuston all expressed their love for the English faculty, and how they truly made their experience better, giving special thanks to McKinney and Doug Rice.

“For me, I had great professors here from the English department, I bonded a lot with students, I met my wife at Sac State in an English class, I think for me personally as a student […] whenever I come to campus I just feel like this is home to me, more so than Davis was,” said Mostafa. “Sac State always feels like home to me.”