This LSU student-athlete’s first book is a romantic read perfect for Valentine’s Day

Twenty-two-year-old LSU student-athlete Gracey James Campbell is stepping into the literary world with her debut novel It’s Been Five Years, a nostalgic story about the search for identity and love. 

Before it was a novel, the story was a question Campbell asked herself: What am I without beach volleyball? 

As it was for many people, the COVID-19 pandemic was a hard time for Campbell. Without access to her sport and no other outlet, she says she turned to writing. 

“I thought, who am I if I’m not a volleyball player?” she says. “I didn’t want to put my entire identity in something that could be stripped away from me.” 

The book, which Campbell describes as a light, fun romance novel, follows Tate Knightley and Easton Mills, childhood best friends who spent two months every summer together until a falling out separated them for five years. Once they reconnect, chaos ensues when feelings come back and unanswered questions begin to unravel. 

“It’s kind of a whirlwind of teenage feelings and hormones and all the other things,” Campbell says. The main word she uses to describe the book is “nostalgic” because childhood friendships and the feeling of familiarity shape the story.

“When you love someone and you’ve loved them for a long time, that feeling is just different from when you’ve just met someone,” she says. 

Campbell doesn’t just dabble in novel writing, though. Over the years, she’s written countless songs, with one called “Backseat Lovers” that is available on Spotify. She also recently optioned “Hunt,” a screenplay she wrote when she was 16; the project is now in the financing stage and actively seeking talent.

Even with those creative pursuits, Campbell says writing long-form fiction is where she feels most like herself because she can attach written emotions to characters. “I love getting inside characters’ minds and understanding why they feel a certain way, seeing stuff the way they see it,” she says. 

There are some obvious similarities between Campbell and the characters she creates. Tate Knightley is a beach volleyball player trying to establish an identity outside her sport, just like Campbell, who is a senior on the beach volleyball team at LSU. Campbell started her college career as a freshman at Pepperdine University before transferring to LSU. 

“I connect to her on a personal level,” Campbell says. “She finds her identity in volleyball, but she wants to be more. She wants to act and write screenplays, but she doesn’t feel like she can. Easton is one of the people who helps her realize [she has] always been this other person, too.” 

Creating characters is one of Campbell’s favorite parts of writing, she says, and she enjoys building full, detailed personalities for each one. She says she likes figuring out what they look like, what coffee they order and even how they text. 

Another thing Campbell loves about all her creative outlets is that she says it all feels very real to her; she’s not trying to be anyone or anything else. She says so many things nowadays feel fake or cultivated, and she prides herself on being honest in her work. 

“I want the person on the other side, receiving my art, to feel like this person is authentic,” she says. 

Growing up, Campbell moved 12 times, often for her dad’s work as a producer and co-director on movie sets. One of the first times she remembers being on set with him was when she was barely 5 years old and met Miley Cyrus on the set of Hannah Montana: The Movie.

Being around successful actors has inspired her, especially last July when she visited her dad in Boston and he introduced her to one of her favorite actors, Leo Woodall. After a starstruck moment, she says she realized that she’s just as capable of being in a successful position with her craft as Woodall was, but that she had to stick with it. In the aftermath of the trip, she decided to write the book and finished a draft after only three months of writing.

Campbell’s long-term goal is to keep writing as long as she can. She plans It’s Been Five Years to be the first book in a trilogy series and says she’s excited to publish her next book, Half of Me, when she finishes editing. 

It’s been Five Years is available on Amazon. Keep up with Gracey James Campbell on her Instagram.