Cassie Cox
Emily Hempstead sees life as a fantasy. She delves into the fantasy world in art, literature, movies, music and clubs.
Hempstead has four brothers and one sister, and has been a resident of Decatur County practically her whole life. She graduated from South Decatur High School last year. While at South, she was enrolled in all the art classes available. During her last week of her senior year, she painted an original mural on one of the walls of the art room. The anime-esque mural took Hempstead around 20 hours to complete. Her last day of high school was spent painting for 13 hours straight.
She was also a member in choir and the drama department. Hempstead had roles in the plays and musicals from eighth grade until she graduated. Her parts ranged from being a stagehand to leads with solos and several dancing scenes. Her favorite role was Henrietta in “Honk!”.
Now Hempstead is a freshman at Hanover. Her major is undecided, but she is leaning towards English for next year. She aspires to be a writer.
“My undiscovered secret dream is to make a video game, but I would settle for a webcomic,” Hempstead revealed about her passion besides writing lenghty books.
She has been writing since she was 10 years old. She claims it was just something to do and she wasn’t neccessarily good at it, but she is better now. Currently, she is writing a book that is over 400 pages and not near being finished.
“Mostly what I do is write. I also read a lot, because you kind of have to read to be able to write. I always carry a book with me if I know I will have a couple minutes in between what I am doing. I would read during an interview for the newspaper if my mom would let me. I am in the middle of about nine books right now. I read fantasy and historical fiction. I am interested in mundane fantastic writing,” she explains.
When she isn’t typing a book with over 20 characters, or drawing comics and illustrations, she meets with her college clubs. Hempstead is in the Sci-Fi Club and Anime Club at Hanover. She is the Sci-Fi Club’s public relations person, where she makes posters and notifications. The club meets once a week in a classroom filled with theater chairs and a big screen television to watch sci-fi movies.
She has recently been asked by her spanish professor to create a book cover. Her spanish professor has written short stories, with one story being only a sentence long, and wants Hempstead to design the art for the cover. She has decided to draw several miniature hands and faces. She finds time to be a member of Hanover’s concert choir as well. In December, her choir sang Handel’s “Messiah” with the Madison Community Choir, totalling over 150 people. She loves any type of music except for rap and country. Any given day, Hempstead’s music playing in the background could be Beethoven or a video game soundtrack from Japan. She performs special music at church just about every time she is home from college for a break or weekend visit. She attends two youth groups; Greensburg Free Methodist and Westport Baptist. During the summer, Hempstead has gone to the Green Lake camp twice and Southeastern Baptist Youth Camp’s Music Camp since seventh grade. At music camp, she usually has a solo or ensemble.
She sings, draws, paints, listens to music, attends clubs and writes about fantasy. Hopefully someday Hempstead’s fantasy will come true and her books will line the shelves of a bookstore.
