Seeing the Story

First and foremost, Natalie Konowicz ’24 considers herself a writer. She’s learned a lot about how to tell a story from her grandfather.

Konowicz is an adept storyteller herself. “Part of it comes from moving around so much,” she says. Her father, Col. Deane R. Konowicz ’95, is in the Air Force, and their family has lived all over the country. “I have to tell my story every time we move, so I can embellish or emphasize different parts.”

Since arriving at Tabor, Konowicz has seized opportunities to merge her passion for writing with her love of film and drama. She has taken theater production courses, written one-act plays, and is currently taking Drama Teacher Jesse Hawley’s Script Writing course. Konowicz has also tried her hand at acting, which she credits with enhancing her perspective as a writer.

“Realizing how much a character doesn’t actually say what they’re thinking has helped me,” she says. “In creative writing, you always have so much about a character’s thoughts. Turning to script writing, so much of that is visual and I’ve enjoyed figuring out how to tell a story without saying everything. I like it a lot.”

As she’s become a more visual storyteller, Konowicz has started sketching storyboards in her notebook. This fall, she transferred one of them from the page to the screen when she made a short film unveiling this year’s theme for the Bowsprit art and literary magazine. (The theme was fear & hope.)

Konowicz has enjoyed writing for different mediums. “The more I involve myself in it, the more I realize I like it. I’d like to study this in college and do it as a career if I can,” she says. “At the end of the day, I think it always comes down to the writing for me. The idea always starts with a pen and a paper.”