After the disappearance of a young woman named Madeline Hepburn, Martin Wright is
brought in for questioning. Wright is a stranger with a checkered past in a new town and an
inclination for conversation. The story is formatted as a monologue as he tries to beat a
polygraph test and get the detective off his trail.
“Madeline Hepburn is Missing watches a man dissolve into his insanity and tangling
himself in his own web of lies. It’s a story with a lot of clues and details that let the reader piece
together what really happened,” says Ze’ev Shaheen ’25 about his creative short story,
completed during Summer Fellows 2024. The short story originally started as a class assignment.
The prompt was to write a 600-word story that gets interrupted or diverted in some way. Shaheen
“immediately thought of trying to tell a story but being interrupted by a loud noise. That
eventually turned into a polygraph test.”
The piece begins: “I want to make it clear that I’m here of my own volition. I volunteered to
provide the – be it very limited – amount of information that I know. Purely out of the
want, or rather the need to be a good samaritan.”
“The whole story is a monologue, so I had to develop a character who liked to hear
himself talk. Martin has such a superiority complex that I could just write rants about things like
coffee as a way of conveying his personality,” states Shaheen.
During Summer Fellows 2024, Shaheen worked with Professor Shane Kowalski,
Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing. Shaheen explains that working with
Kowalski one-on-one is a different experience than in the classroom. Shaheen says, “He has a
deep appreciation for stories in the classroom. But when we’re both able to focus on one story
it’s easier to get into the meat of what makes the story breathe.” Every week Kowalski would
send Shaheen a “Weekly Weird” update. Shaheen says that these “included movie clips, short
stories, news articles, and songs that he thought would help my writing process. I still listen to
one of the songs he sent me whenever I’m in a writing slump.” Kowalski says, “Working with
Ze’ev on his fiction was the highlight of my summer. I’m grateful to have been able to see up
close the journey Madeline Hepburn took – from a very short lark of a scene to a full-blooded
narrative with novelistic potential. If there were a million Ze’evs out there I would have an easy
job.”
While desiring to share that his creative process was idealistic, that it was comprised of
him sitting at a desk and letting the words flow naturally, Shaheen says, “What actually
happened was I would slump on my couch and stare at the blank document until suddenly I hit
the word count. A surprising amount of my work was actually watching movies or reading
books, trying to get an understanding of why I liked those stories.”
A big difficulty that Shaheen faced while writing Madeline Hepburn is Missing was
believing in its potential. “All artists are concerned about how good their art actually is, and I am
no exception,” Shaheen says. Almost every day after writing, Shaheen would sit with a lot of
doubts about his writing’s quality. He says, “I don’t have a cure for it, but I do know that
sometimes you just have to take a risk. Submit it even if you think it’s bad. At the end of the day
if you put in the effort, chances are someone will see the potential that you couldn’t.”
“Being able to get away from reality through fiction is my biggest drive,” states Shaheen.
Sci-fi/Fantasy and Horror are big inspirations for him, as he says, “I am in love with the idea of
how in the face of otherworldly threats we are the most human.” In this aspect, Mike Flanagan
comes to Shaheen’s mind, as he says, “Flanagan’s horror TV shows to me are more about
confronting your humanity than the ghosts that torment the characters.”
Right now, Shaheen is applying to graduate schools for creative writing. Shaheen wants
to continue learning about stories and how to tell them. “As of what the far future holds, I just
want to keep stories in my life, even if I don’t write them for a living,” he says.
“I have two pieces of advice for writers. Be passionate and be weird. You have to love
what you do when it comes to writing. Art is such a personal and human experience and if you
let yourself forget what makes you human and passionate then your writing will suffer. Don’t be
afraid to write wild stories, there is an audience for your crazy ideas,” Shaheen says. It’s safe to
say that, while Madeline Hepburn may be missing, what is certainly not missing is Shaheen’s
creativity and talent.
Ze’ev Shaheen’s short story Madeline Hepburn is Missing is available to read on the
Ursinus Digital Commons page in the “English Summer Fellows” section.