Stockton Grunewald, '21

Stockton Grunewald points to his book.

Sophomore Stockton Grunewald has always loved learning about the past and reading about policy. His passion for these subjects led him to studying history and political science. Through his studies, he was encouraged by adjunct psychology professor, Alex McEntire, Ph.D., to put pen to paper on an idea for a story he had been thinking about for a while.

The book titled, “End of the Line”, contains a little bit of mythology, a little bit of history and a little bit of theology according to Grunewald.

“Basically, the guy on the front cover is one of the Roman centurions who was present at the crucifixion of Christ,” Grunewald said. “Because of that, he is condemned to walk the earth for eternity, protecting the lineage of Christ. It takes place mostly throughout World War II.”

Grunewald had the idea for a while but was hesitant on putting the story out there. Once he started writing, Grunewald found it hard to stop.

“I just wanted to finish it and fill in the blanks,” Grunewald said. “I think that stems from my love of history. I wanted to put a unique spin on something from an angle that I hadn’t seen.”

Grunewald created an outline prior to writing the story, which helped keep organized throughout the writing process. 

“Since I had that outline to go off of, I knew I had to get from A to B and B to C. That was very helpful. Organization does help,” Grunewald said.

After four months of writing, Grunewald spent some time editing the book. During this time, he hoped that his book would be picked up by a publisher. After about eight months of waiting, Grunewald decided to publish the book through CreateSpace, an Amazon company. The platform allows creators to self-publish books, CDs and DVDs. There, Grunewald was able to do most of the book formatting on his own.

Throughout the writing process, Grunewald pulled from multiple disciplines on campus for inspiration. He was ultimately encouraged to write by McEntire, but also spoke with both Kevin Motes, Ph.D., associate professor of history, and Thomas Ringenberg, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science outside of the classroom about the book.

Grunewald also pulled information he had learned from Matthew Schmidli, assistant professor of theater, to assist in characterization.

“Matt Schmidli really focuses on characterizations and character motivations,” Grunewald said. “That was really important here because one of the most difficult things for me was to create characters with not only different identities and personality traits, but also motivations. Juggling that can be difficult at times, so I think it was really helpful to have some training like that. You can bounce ideas from other corners of your life and put it into it.”

The book has been on shelves, and virtual shelves, for only a few weeks, but Grunewald has received positive feedback.

“People have told me that they actually really enjoyed it,” Grunewald said. “I wanted to tell this story because I think it’s a story of hope and redemption and I think that it’s entertaining and fun. At the end of the day I just want people to think, ‘huh, this is something that was worth my time.’”

The book, “End of the Line”, can be found on Amazon and in a few smaller bookstores, including Prospero’s Books in Westport. Grunewald hopes to write more in the future but doesn’t currently have any book plans in the works.

“If I can do it, literally anyone can. Keep working at it. You really can do it,” Grunewald said. “If you want to tell that story, it’ll come out on the pages, and I think the world will be better for it. You matter, and what you want to tell people, matters.”

 

You can get your copy of "End of the Line" HERE.