In Dyer, Arkansas, just north of the meandering Arkansas River in the heart of the Arkansas River Valley, Rice University senior Hadley Medlock grew up with the hues of verdant hills rolling into the distance, their slopes cloaked in a tapestry of sycamore, cottonwood, birch and maple. She soaked up all the rugged beauty and serene simplicity she could from that cradle between the Ozarks and the Ouachitas, tapping into those memories to craft an essay she titled “Ode to a Southern Life.”
“It’s a reflection on how I grew up, where I grew up,” said Medlock, an English major with an environmental studies minor. “I think a lot about themes of home, place, what makes a place home and how definitions of home change as we grow up and move to other places and call them home.”
The graduating senior’s essay won the Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing, which carries a $5,000 award.
“I definitely wanted to weave in a lot of the natural environmental aspects because I feel like that did inform a lot of the way that I grew up in Arkansas and how I’ve come to form the interests that I have today,” Medlock said.
Medlock has also interwoven her life into the Rice community. She was part of the inaugural cohort of the Gulf Scholars Program, has been involved with the Center for Civic Leadership, served as a gallery guide at the Moody Center for the Arts, worked at Rice Coffeehouse and currently writes for The Thresher. But as natural as her place at Rice feels now, she said it wasn’t an obvious choice when she started looking at options for college.
“I just remember my mom said, ‘You should definitely look into Rice,’” Medlock said.
A senior year road trip to campus with friends followed by an early decision reminder from the university, sealed the deal for her.
“When I visited Rice, I liked the culture,” Medlock said. “I really liked the people I got to meet. I liked the idea that it was more of a STEM-focused school, but it still had a great English faculty.”
She dove right in with creative writing courses, including nonfiction nature writing taught by Rice associate professor of creative writing Lacy Johnson. Knowing she wanted to continue along that path, perhaps incorporating environmental writing along the way, Medlock worked with Johnson on an independent study course.
“That’s where I wrote the piece for Barthelme,” Medlock said. “(Johnson) has been so supportive of me and my writing, especially through the process of applying for Barthelme, and she was so excited for me when I won.”
“Hadley’s work represents the best of what interdisciplinary study in the humanities has to offer,” Johnson said. “Her work with the Gulf Scholars Program and in environmental studies prepared her to think about the environmental challenges facing communities, and her training in creative writing in both nonfiction and poetry gave her the creative tools to craft a beautifully resonant narrative about her home place and her people. I feel really lucky to have gotten to work with Hadley during her time at Rice and to see her grow as a writer.”
Now as graduation day approaches, Hadlock is eyeing jobs that will tap into both her passions: creative writing and environmental studies.
“I really am interested in journalism or doing something that just allows me to write because it’s what I love to do,” Medlock said.
Her path to and through Rice may not have been quite as windy or turbulent as the Arkansas River she grew up near, but it undeniably carried Medlock through a landscape of discovery and growth, preparing her for the journey ahead.
“I’m so glad that that ended up happening,” Medlock said.