COLUMBIA, MD — A junior at Washington College took a novella writing class assignment and turned her dream into a reality by publishing her very first book.
Natalie Martinaitis of Columbia, who serves as the editor-in-chief of the Washington College Review while majoring in English with minors in creative writing and journalism, editing and publishing, developed The Post-PSO Project, a novella that rockets readers to the far reaches of space where psychological experiments on children have been carried out simultaneously on Earth and Mars by the People Stimulus Organization.
The story follows Amelia, one of 10 children invited to join Capt. Karen McCall’s mission to the Red Planet to explore outside the PSO site by attending Camp Red Sands, where they will build a model of the planet’s surface. Amelia aims to discover what lies outside the camp’s perimeter. But what lies beyond could end them all, Martinaitis said.
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“I loved that I could write a book for a class,” Martinaitis told Patch. “It was certainly challenging to get in 10 pages a week.”
The storyline takes place in a world Martinaitis created for two previous, much longer works, both of which have yet to find a publisher. Martinaitis first came up with the idea of the PSO world when a friend showed her a Pinterest post that read something along the lines of “what if humanity had to judge each other after watching these movies: The Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense and Titanic?”
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Contemplating that thought led her to draft a play that she ended up hating However, she fell in love with one of the characters she had created, Elliot Green — who she described as a gentle, passionate and kind soul, traumatized by forced experiments conducted by the PSO.
“I decided to write Elliot a book of his own, which I titled Elliot’s Story. It reached 800 pages,” Martinaitis said. “The original book I have written in this series, Elliot’s Story, deals with isolation. Basically, there are children on Mars who are completely separate from those on Earth. The distance made it easier to fully articulate this concept. I rolled with it in this story because I wanted to learn more about the Red Planet. I think Olympus Mons is so cool. However, it’s important to note that this is not a mechanical novel of Mars, but rather a story of the isolation another planet could bring.”
Even though her work was rejected by more than 15 literary agents, Martinaitis knew she was on to something big. She switched gears and started writing another novel based in the same world that revolved around the antagonist from her first book, Martin Woods. That book, Demons, is almost finished.
“I thought these would be the only books within the world of PSO,” Martinaitis said. “But it turned out I was wrong. I had two dreams that featured the Mars landscape and I knew they would have to become stories. I hope that my books Elliot’s Story and Demons will find their forever homes.”
Martinaitis currently has seven self-published books under her belt. She also has books she’s written but are not yet published, including two that take place in the same world as Post-PSO. She plans to continue writing after graduating from Washington College in 2025.
“However, I also have interest in the editing world, so I may first begin in children’s and young adult editing,” she said. “I don’t think I will ever stop writing. I just can’t promise that they will all be in the same world.
Not only has Martinaitis enjoyed success in the classroom and with her books, she has her sights set on winning the coveted Washington College Sophie Kerr Prize next year as a college senior, the largest undergraduate literary award in the country. She will graduate in 2025.
“Natalie is a serious student in the best sense—she has a serious hunger for knowledge, a serious enthusiasm for conversation with her fellow students, and a serious commitment for improving her writing and engagement with literature,” said Washington College Department of English Chair Courtney Rydel.
Anyone interested in reading a copy of Martinaitis’ book can find a copy in paperback and on Kindle at Amazon. There is also an audiobook version available.
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