What are you doing after you graduate? It’s a question many students are used to hearing the closer they come to graduation. Most stress over how to answer or avoid the question altogether, but one Seahawk is already living her dream.

On Friday, April 1, Tess Duck hosted a release party for her novel “Celestial Kitty Danny-Chan” at the Clock Tower Lounge at UNC Wilmington.

“They’re selling my book at a comic store on Franklin Street. It’s called Chapel Hill Comics I think. It’s also going to be at Pomegranate Books here and Two Sisters as well,” said Duck of her novel’s release. “I’m super excited, it’s all happening so fast now.”

Duck, a sophomore here at UNCW double majoring in creative writing and communication studies, self-published her novel through the company IngramSpark. The novel tells the story of Danny Walski, a high school freshman, and Ezekiel, an angel hunting escaped demons.

“It’s probably meant for the lower middle school age group, definitely young adult and for anime fans. But any age can read it really. That’s one thing I’ve learned: anime never really leaves you,” said Duck.

The novel’s fantasy and specific themes were not things Duck knew would be accepted well in her creative writing classes.

“It’s hard to write something like this in your classes where they only accept more serious, literary work, and you can’t really get any critique if you write fantasy or horror or genre anything,” said Duck. “That’s one of the reasons why I started the Writer’s Association. I started it at my high school and now we have it here. It’s just a place to workshop writing that typically wouldn’t be seen in class and support you.”

The Writer’s Association functioned as her first editors in a big way as well.

“I’m dyslexic and I’m in a group with two other dyslexics, and it helps to have them and others read my work so many times for errors,” said Duck.

But in her path to publishing, Duck discovered one of the joys of being a published writer was working with an editor.

“This was my first time working with an actual editor, and it was really nice, very different from workshops. It was nice to work one on one with someone who truly cared about your work.”

Duck herself has put a lot of work into not just this book, but the planning and marketing behind it and the future novels that will follow it.

“Self publishing is not really a way to get a lot of money, but it gets your name out there. It takes a lot more work, especially with the planning and advertising,” said Duck.

Earlier in the year, Duck marketed her novel to Animazement, selling at a table there and showing that she knows the target audience for her novel.

“I’ve already written three of the books and I have a plan for it to be a total of nine,” said Duck. “It’s modeled after Japanese light novels; that’s why I market it to comic stores. It’s kind of light and silly right now, a bit of absurdist humor style, but it won’t stay that way. It’ll get dark down the road.”

While Duck may be overwhelmed with excitement at the prospect of seeing her own name on bookshelves, she isn’t sitting back and relaxing just yet. She planned the entire release party and is also planning another book event to be held soon at Two Sisters Bookery.

While current marketing is her main goal, she is also looking at December for the next release date if everything goes well.

“I may not be making a lot of money, but I’d rather it look good and focus on the quality of the product over something that’s super cheap,” said Duck.