Fifteen years ago, six students in a Mercer University literature course approached their professor about teaching a writing class for working adult undergraduate students in the College of Professional Advancement.
With the blessing of the college’s leadership, their professor, Dr. Margaret Eskew, agreed. That writing course led Dr. Eskew and her students to create Regeneration Writers Press, a teaching press that primarily publishes student work.
“We called it ‘Regeneration’ because that’s exactly what had happened to the students — and to me as well,” said Dr. Eskew, who retired in 2023. “We talked about how energizing it had been to be involved in writing and writing things that they wanted to write.”
Since its founding in 2010, Regeneration Writers Press has published 11 books featuring dozens of student authors. It also has built a community of writers who continue to be involved with the press and support each other to this day.
“There’s a real connection, even between the years,” said Jan Crocker, who graduated with her bachelor’s degree from the College of Professional Advancement in 2009. “The original Regeneration writers may not know the newest writers, but when we meet, it’s like we have an instant connection.”
That connection started in the classroom, where students were encouraged to write what they knew and be vulnerable.
“I would tell students, ‘Look, I don’t want you to write like I write. I want you to write with your voice because your voice is distinct, and when people hear a distinct voice, that’s what invites them in,” Dr. Eskew said.
Crocker — who earned her degree while working in Mercer’s marketing communications office, where she is director of photography — wrote several personal short stories, including tales about her experience as a young intern at an asylum, a harrowing accident of a loved one, and her daughter.
“We would write stories and exchange our work, and the other students would give us suggestions, and then Margaret would also give us suggestions,” she said. “We would take a really rough story and polish it to the point that it was publishable. It was a feeling of accomplishment.”
Crocker’s stories and those of her classmates were published in Regeneration! A Journal of Creative Writing, the first book published by Regeneration Writers Press. Another student author, Gloria Jordan, wrote about the 1957 execution of her father in the Jim Crow South and the later imprisonment of her son.
“The story actually is about my son and my father, and the turmoil they went through being accused of things they didn’t do, but they had to pay the price for it,” she said. “When we did a reading, one of the people said, ‘It’s so dark,’ but it has to be dark because it’s the truth.”
Jordan, who received the Griffin B. Bell Award for Community Service from Mercer when she graduated with her bachelor’s degree in 2010, said writing the story was therapeutic. It wasn’t until she got to Mercer that she was able to research what happened to her father.
“All I ever had was information from my mom and my grandma, but finally being here I was able to research, and I found some articles on the story,” she said.
April Cantrell, who graduated with her bachelor’s degree in 2020, also found healing through writing. Her book, Writing for Healing: Stories of Formative Events, is the most recent work published by Regeneration Writers Press.
The book is a collection of true stories that have been fictionalized. Many of the stories, written in poetry and prose by multiple authors, involve trauma. The idea came to Cantrell, who is Mercer’s registrar, while in Dr. Eskew’s class.
“I found reading other people’s stories was very healing, and I also found that writing my own stories was very healing to me,” she said.
As the writers worked on the book, Dr. Eskew helped them find the characters’ voices and overcome writing hurdles.
“Margaret is the most affirming person I have ever met in my life when it comes to writing,” Cantrell said. “She can pull a book or a written word out of anyone.”
Laura Collins, who graduated with her bachelor’s degree in 2023, worked on Writing for Healing as an associate editor as part of her internship with Regeneration Writers Press.
That experience “helped to ground me professionally in the publishing industry at a very small, intimate press where I knew the people, and they knew me,” Collins said. “It gave me the room to grow and make mistakes and learn from them and also feel very supported.”
Collins is now an editorial assistant for Wiley, a global publishing company, where she helps prepare research journals for publication.
While Dr. Eskew has helped many students find their calling as writers, she also nurtured Yvonne Gabriel’s first love — painting. Regeneration Writers Press published the children’s book, Chico: The Polar Bear, which Gabriel wrote and illustrated. She also has illustrated several other books for the press.
“Dr. Eskew puts you in touch with who you are and what you want to do,” Gabriel previously told The Den. “I kind of felt ambivalent about art as far as it being practical and not making a lot of money. Dr. Eskew helped me to see that I should really just follow this path in my life. That definitely had a big impact on me.”
She earned her bachelor’s degree from Mercer in 2012 and a master’s degree in painting from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2018. She’s now an adjunct professor at Mercer.
Now, with Dr. Eskew’s retirement, Regeneration Writers Press is at a crossroads. Dr. Eskew, the writers and College of Professional Advancement leadership will meet to talk about how the press will continue. Several books written by alumni, faculty and friends of Mercer are currently in progress.
Many of those involved hope it can become self-sustaining, so this supportive community of Regeneration writers will continue to grow.
