Sophomore Britney Villanueva was 8 when she first picked up a piece of paper and a pencil to keep her mind away from her dad’s deportation.

“I needed something to distract me from my dad being gone. He was deported and I didn’t know what else to do,” Villanueva said.

Since her dad’s deportation, Villanueva said she uses writing as a way to reflect on events happening in her life.

“(I write) mostly about what happens to me or in my life,” she said. “(Writing) helps me learn from life lessons.”  

Villanueva said she keeps her pieces in one of the three journals she has. Her current journal is almost full, with a cover that has a special meaning to her.

“I have a journal with the cover as a moon goddess, which to me means many things, like fulfilling dreams and time. She was also the goddess of keeping time for harvesting,” Villanueva said. “(The goddess) also represents the intuitive nature of women.”

Villanueva said she tends to keep her writing pieces to herself because it isn’t a topic that comes up often.

“I’ve never shared (my pieces) with anyone, mostly because I don’t really talk about it, but a lot of my friends know I have a journal and I have let them read some of them when they ask,” Villanueva said. “It just depends on which piece I feel comfortable letting people read.”

Villanueva’s older sister, Mary Villanueva, is out of high school and said she found her sister’s writings on her tablet.

“The first time I realized Britney had a passion for writing was when I came upon one of her poems on my tablet,” Mary Villanueva said. “She would read to me some of her short stories and always asked for my opinion. When she got writers block she wouldn’t give up on her stories and instead continued to look for inspiration.”

Mary Villanueva said she hopes her sister will pursue her dreams with writing in the future to inspire others.

“I hope that she pursues her dreams with writing, whether that be for a newspaper, book or magazine,” Mary Villanueva said. “I hope that she continues to write with meaning so that whoever reads her pieces is inspired by her words to pursue their own dreams.”

In the future, Villanueva said she hopes to talk more about her writing to others and share them with more people.

“I do hope to share my work one day, I just don’t know if I’m quite ready yet,” she said. “I hope it allows me to be able to change people in good ways to show them something of meaning.”