Photo by Lisa Abitbol

Wellesley students are known to be busy, and Ann Zhao ’24 is no different. Zhao, a cognitive and linguistic sciences major who lives in the Crow’s Nest of Severance, has a full course load (linguistics, sociology, history, and women’s and gender studies), DJs a WZLY show (favorite artists include Taylor Swift, Lorde, dodie, Maisie Peters, and Olivia Rodrigo), and works for the Wellesley News as a senior news editor, book reviewer, and social media guru (running the paper’s TikTok and contributing to its satire Twitter account @WellesleySnooze). Oh, and she’s also on her way to becoming a published author.

Zhao, who grew up outside Chicago, began writing in high school. She started her first book in 2020, the summer before she arrived at Wellesley, and she queried literary agents that December. During that time, she also wrote her second novel, Dear Wendy, a “platonic rom-com” about two Wellesley first-years, both aromantic and asexual, who run rival anonymous Instagram advice accounts. The two meet and become friends, having no idea about each other’s secret internet identities. Zhao eventually signed with a literary agent (yes!), and this spring, she sold Dear Wendy to the Feiwel & Friends imprint of Macmillan, to be published in 2024 (woo-hoo!). Now, Zhao will turn her attention to preparing Dear Wendy for publication and also revising that first novel. (You know, on top of all that Wellesley stuff.)

How does she do it? “I use Google Calendar to block off writing time, homework time,” explains Zhao. “I always get a good night’s sleep and make sure to eat the right number of meals. A lot of people sacrifice their own health to do a lot of work, but you can’t work well if you don’t care for yourself.”

And to Zhao, her endeavors are no big deal: “Everyone at Wellesley is doing something really cool I wish I was capable of doing.”