It seems that the life of an artist is much like a path on the rolling hills of Simi Valley. Lots of ups and downs and quite varied in its style. But like all things in life there has to be a beginning and with a new Moorpark Review coming out many Moorpark College students have a chance to shine. I had a chance to sit down with one of those students and he had a couple of informative things to say.

Joe Lewis is a student at Moorpark Community College and he has been fortunate enough to have a mixture of the right teachers and good amount of ambition to fall in love with the English language. So much in fact, he has decided to exploit it into a career of writing. “I found that all of my ideas are best expressed through writing,” said Lewis who believes the written word is one of the more powerful forms of expression. “Writers have been exiled and beheaded for politically-oriented fiction novels, emotional writings have started wars, cults have formed and that’s not including the impact of the Bible on the world.”

That good amount of ambition paid off as he found out two weeks ago when one of the four poems he submitted is to be published into the Moorpark Review. “They kept me waiting, and the whole time I was biting nails and grinding teeth. I was more relieved than happy by the time I got the letter,” he explained.

(But) his experience was all but pleasing, “Somehow, my poem slipped through the cracks. I only sent that in to send it in (and) to increase my odds of being published if, perhaps, the Moorpark Review was pressed for space and couldn’t publish my nine page short story. Turned out that was a (really) good idea, since I would have been really upset if nothing was published,” he continued, “I’m not in a position to complain, really. I’m (very) happy they chose my piece. Now I’m just eager to get published somewhere more renowned.”