Professor Stephen Cavitt always had a love and passion for literature and writing. He recently took on his most ambitious career endeavor yet: writing a book series with accompanying audio.
“It’s really hard to carve out writing time as a writing teacher,” Cavitt said. “Consistency is key, but it’s also the hardest thing to do, because there’s so many distractions in the modern world.”
Cavitt and FGCU storytelling professor, Joel Ying, decided to do something about this and created a faculty writing group to set aside time to write consistently once a week. It was through this writing group that the idea for his book series came to him.
“I heard this character start talking to me like, just what I threw out on the page,” Cavitt said. “It seemed like they wanted to be there.”
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He turned those stories into his book released in 2024, titled “The Distance Between Stars,” which is structured as a series of monologues at the end of the world conducted by its narrator, aspiring journalist Niquish Fromer. It is the first book in what Cavitt envisions to be a four-part science fiction series called “The Und Wars.”
Cavitt finds that as he gets older, he can use his literary storytelling to convey meaningful reflections on life that he wants to share with the world.
“I think when we go into literature, planning to preach, we get something pretty dry and awful, but if we go into it and let the characters run loose, then they can show us what we actually think deep down.”
Cavitt didn’t stop at writing a book. He wanted to give the story the attention he felt like it deserves by creating a podcast version of his book that came out in Spring 2025. His first thought was for it to be expressed more as a podcast, and it became a book later in his writing time.
“Positive obsession helps when I get in a project, I’m in that project,” Cavitt said. “Other people go out Friday night but I’m thinking, ‘okay, as soon as I finish grading this work, I can spend an hour or two finishing up this chapter.’”
Since he had nine characters, he wanted to find the perfect voice for them, so he recruited his friends and other faculty members from the FGCU Department of Language and Literature as well as held open auditions.
Photo courtesy of Stephen Cavitt
Cavitt started teaching at FGCU in 2018 and from the moment he first interviewed, he knew it would be the right fit for him.
“It didn’t feel like an interview, it felt like we were all friends sitting around and talking about teaching, exchanging ideas,” Cavitt said. “This place is filled with people who are excited to go to work…and that was really exciting to me.”
One of the faculty members on the call for his initial interview was FGCU Creative Writing Coordinator Lori Cornelius. She also felt this connection with him and became one of his close friends at the university.
“I think both of us being Southern, there was just kind of this instant connection,” Cornelius said. “I’ve been on a lot of hiring committees, and it was just super personal and a lot of fun and I remember we hung up the phone and I said, ‘I really hope that we hire this guy.’”
Cornelius was one of the nine people Cavitt enlisted to help bring his characters to life for the podcast version. She voices Literature Professor Leslie Rhodes, who saves a baby and adopts it on the way to the ship.
“I kind of got the feeling somehow Stephen had written that part for me,” Cornelius said. “I think the one thing I would say is I am the kind of person who would find a child on the trail and adopt it, that sounds like something I would do.”
However, something she wouldn’t normally do if it hadn’t been for Cavitt’s request is sing.
“I did not know he was going to ask me to sing. I don’t sing. I’m not a singer, but he has me sing a gospel tune in there, ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,’” Cornelius said.
Cornelius used to be in radio before transitioning to academia, so Cavitt was excited to share her talent with the campus.
“My pitch for the entire campus, every time somebody asks about the podcast is, I’ll say, ‘Do you want to hear Lori Cornelius sing gospel?’ And everybody does, it’s a win-win,” Cavitt said.
With the novelette taking place during the end times and Cornelius’ character raising new life at the same time, it presents a message of hope which made the singing seem fitting to Cornelius.
“It’s the music of my childhood. It’s what I grew up around, even though I didn’t appreciate it or even like it at the time,” Cornelius said. “It felt right to sing it, and it felt like the right choice for the character that he had written.”
Cornelius’ husband, John Cornelius, was the sound engineer behind the podcast project. From the time recording first started in 2021 until the podcast’s release in 2025, he was behind it all cleaning it up.
“I had forgotten my husband’s a perfectionist, so it took forever to get it all done, but it worked out ok,” Cornelius said.
Another thing that keeps Cavitt busy is his other podcast, “The Poetry Professor,” where he shares the poems he writes and explains his thought process behind them. In this way, he can expand his teaching to a larger audience other than his students.
“Anyone can say anything about a poem,” Cavitt said. “But we don’t usually hear the poets themselves talk about the choices.”
Other professors at the University of North Florida and the University of Florida use his podcast transcripts to help with their own teaching. It is also in use in the United Kingdom.
Due to the podcast’s success, he received funding to continue his work from the President’s Circle of Excellence, a program that recognizes those who want to make a tangible difference in FGCU’s future. He hopes to do more outreach for this podcast this semester.
“Poetry helps me make sense of a confusing world and affirm that the world is sacred even in times when it’s tough.”
If interested in reading any of Cavitt’s published work, links are provided on his website stephencavitt.com. His books can be found on Amazon and his podcast is available on all podcast platforms.