Jayson Coleman’s search for stories

When Jayson Coleman first toured the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, he wasn’t searching for a single major so much as a place where all his creative impulses could coexist. The Weston native narrowed his choices to schools with strong journalism programs, but Eau Claire stood out for reasons that had nothing to do with course catalogs. The campus felt beautiful and grounded; downtown was walkable and alive; and, he admits, it was close enough to home to feel safe.

“After a few weeks, I realized I wasn’t even going home very often,” Coleman laughs.

He chose to stay because Eau Claire offered something he could not find elsewhere: a city full of small discoveries. Trails tucked behind Carson Park, coffee shops and bookstores in the heart of the city and creative communities accessible to all helped Coleman blossom into the self-declared wanderer and explorer who walks the campus today.

Brainstorming the background

Creativity has always been the through line of Coleman’s life. As a child, he filled empty notebooks with stories, and in elementary school he wrote pieces that stretched across entire journals. Coleman joined choir in middle school, discovered performing arts in high school and spent years experimenting with different forms of creative expression. He tried athletics, too, but gravitated always toward the theatrical. He studied, he says, how umpires called strikes so he could mimic their flair as an intramural referee.

“I’ve always been into creative stuff — writing, choir, theatre — it’s just always been part of me.”

By the time he reached college, the question was not whether he would tell stories but how. Journalism offered structure and professional pathways; creative writing offered freedom and imagination. One semester in, the answer was clear.

“Creative writing is what I want to do,” he says. “It’s where I feel the most myself.”

An unexpected plot twist

Coleman brought to UW-Eau Claire dozens of earned credits from high school coursework. So when he was invited to join the Mark Stephen Cosby Honors College, he wondered at first whether its classes would make his college experience harder than it needed to be. He quickly discovered the opposite.

“Honors doesn’t make college harder. Being in honors makes everything else easier.”

He credits the faculty and staff, Dr. Heather Fielding and Kim Wellnitz, as the first people on campus who saw leadership potential in him long before he saw it in himself.

“I didn’t view myself as a leader,” Coleman admits. “I didn’t trust myself in those roles, but they kept encouraging me. They kept opening doors.”

One of those doors led him to the Center for Writing Excellence. Coleman fondly remembers his mom telling him to apply to the CWE but not thinking much of it; when Fielding encouraged him, too, he thought they may be onto something.

The CWE became one of the most transformative experiences of his college career. It gave Coleman confidence, community and a sense of purpose. Later, the Cosby Honors College opened even more opportunities: helping with early move-in, joining the LLC leadership team and stepping into roles he once would have avoided.

“Now I feel a lot more comfortable taking risks and opening some of those more unfamiliar doors.”

One chapter after another

Coleman’s college involvement presents a pretty tidy map of UW-Eau Claire’s entire creative ecosystem. He has tutored in the CWE for two years; he has sung in choir for all eight semesters, among various ensembles; he joined English Fest as a sophomore and now serves as its president, working to rebuild the organization after a few quiet years; he attended the international Writing Centers Association conference in Cincinnati, Ohio; he completed an internship with the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild, where he interviewed local authors and attended writing retreats; and he has published twice, with another piece forthcoming this semester, in NOTA  or None of the Above, UW-Eau Claire’s creative arts magazine.

Add to these creative pursuits his other involvement — badminton club, intramural refereeing and both writing and performing in the UW-Eau Claire Theatre Collective’s 24-Hour Project — and Coleman’s story begins to run off the page.

“I like doing silly things,” he remarks. “Trying new things. Exploring Eau Claire. There’s so much here if you just look around.”

A graduating senior, Coleman’s final semesters have been defined, he says, by a mantra that might seem surprising: “Do things I want to do but haven't been able to do. I still have so many things that I wanted to do but haven't been able to do.”

This year alone, he auditioned for UW-Eau Claire’s Concert Choir, joined (and published frontpage stories for) the student newspaper, The Spectator, written about student productions, interviewed creatives across campus and finished (nearly) the second draft of his novel — and will board a plane to England just a week after graduating to study abroad, with no graduation requirements attached.

“I’m doing it because I finally can. It’s something I’ve wanted for years.”

A recipe for stories

After graduation, Coleman hopes to move to a larger city — right now, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Indianapolis, Indiana, top the list. For now, he’ll immerse himself in arts, culture and creative opportunity with a focus on sports writing, creative journalism and any work that lets him talk with people about their ideas. Long term, he is open to going wherever a great story may take him.

“I love talking with creatives. I love hearing about what they’re building,” Coleman says. “There’s a lot more open for English majors than people think. I’m just going to see where things go.”

There’s a metaphor in this that captures Coleman’s college experience — and it should come as no surprise that it’s one he crafted himself:

“College is about realizing you can’t stick your fingers into every single pie, but you still have 10 fingers. You can still do a lot. You just have to choose what matters most.”

Written by Zoe Eineichner, a third-year junior at UW-Eau Claire, double-majoring in psychology and organizational communication and pursuing a graduate degree in industrial-organizational psychology. Her hometown is Mukwonago.