Finding Her Voice Through Inspire: Samantha Spindler’s Creative Writing Journey
The Inspire program at the UVA | Northern Virginia gives high school students the unique opportunity to explore courses in subjects they’re passionate about. From STEM to the arts, Inspire connects motivated students with UVA instructors and peers who share their interests. For Samantha Spindler, a 10th grader and Scout leader, the Inspire Creative Writing course offered through Inspire became the perfect space to strengthen her writing skills, build confidence, and connect with a supportive community of fellow storytellers.
Discovering a Community of Writers
When asked what motivated her to enroll in the Inspire program, Samantha shared:
“I decided to join the Inspire program because it was an opportunity to have a lot of time to focus on creative writing with other people my age who enjoy it and can help my writing become better.”
Unlike other classes she had taken, the Inspire Creative Writing course was entirely devoted to the craft of writing. Samantha explained that this gave her the chance to fully immerse herself in her favorite hobby, exploring different writing forms and techniques in depth.
Favorite Memories from Inspire
For Samantha, the most memorable part of Inspire wasn’t just the writing itself, but the sense of community that developed among classmates.
“I really liked getting to know the other kids in my class, especially because it was so small. When we took snack breaks we would all congregate around the coffee machine, make hot chocolate, and talk.”
That supportive environment allowed her to feel comfortable sharing her work aloud—a vulnerable but rewarding step for any writer.
Growth as a Writer
Samantha’s final piece was one she had been refining for a long time, but the Inspire program gave her fresh perspective:
“Talking about it with my instructor helped me see it from a different point of view and understand where I needed to break up long sections of description.”
Through constructive feedback, she learned how to strengthen her storytelling and gained the confidence to pursue larger opportunities. As she explained, “I plan to apply the knowledge I’ve gained from the Inspire program to improve my writing at home so I can be more confident to submit my stories in bigger contests.”
Advice for Future Inspire Students
For students considering Inspire, Samantha’s advice is both practical and encouraging:
“Take advantage of the quiet study spaces upstairs if you’re taking the in-person class and try to get to know your classmates. My most important advice would be to not be afraid of being vulnerable and sharing your work out loud.”
Inspire: Shaping the Next Generation of Leaders
Samantha’s story highlights how Inspire is more than just an academic program—it’s a launchpad for creativity, confidence, and community. For students like her, the program creates space to grow not only as writers but also as leaders prepared to take on challenges in the classroom and beyond.
At the end of this feature, we’re proud to showcase Samantha’s final piece of writing from Inspire. Her words reflect the dedication, creativity, and leadership that make her an inspiring voice among her peers.
The Infinity Hotel
By Samantha Spindler
The receptionist of the Infinity Hotel was a strange man, but the guest was even stranger. The bells on her coat jingled as she shook in the frosty air. A cloying odor, like that of cleaning detergent mixed with maple syrup, lingered across the lobby.
“You’re free to retire to your room, madam,” the receptionist drawled, his Cheshire cat smile dripping with guile. “Breakfast starts at seven, checkout is at…let’s say, eleven. Also, the radiators are out tonight. It will be rather chilly until we can fix them.” He plucked a stack of crumpled bills off the counter.
The guest licked her lips with a forked tongue, closing her eyes. “Thank you, and have a wonderful morning.”
The receptionist snorted but didn’t respond. It was 11:47 PM.
The ornaments on her coat clashed like cymbals as she marched to the elevator, which opened to display waxy wooden panels and a lethargic operator. I can’t tell you quite how long the ascent took, but I’ve heard that at the Infinity Hotel it takes close to forever to reach your room.
The elevator stopped on the 18-billionth floor and opened for a custodian. He clambered in languidly, muttering, “Good evening, ma’am.”
“‘Morning,” she replied.
The man’s neck swiveled. “The weather is fantastic. I love it when it rains.”
“It’s not raining.”
He scoffed. “How would you know?”
The doors opened again. A young woman stepped in, carrying a bag which looked to be completely empty. Her grin left her eyes strangely uncreased. “What a beautiful day. Isn’t this weather fantastic?”
“Yes…it is,” said the man, nodding up and down emphatically. The woman, having exceptional hearing, heard a faint crick in his spine. “Don’t you agree?”
“I already said I agreed,” she snapped. The two tittered conspiratorially.
She decided to take the stairs.
The room was a bit too grand for the rate, but the woman paid it no mind. She disappeared into the bathroom, turned to the mirror and began to remove her face.
She started with the skin. It peeled straight off. She put it on the counter on a paper towel, then her lips and eyebrows, and her lashes. Under the mask her skin was scales, purple or gold depending on the light. Her eyes bulged peevishly, like those of a chameleon.
She snaked her fingers into her hair and ripped it from her head, releasing a deluge of wolf spiders that scattered immediately. Upon her scalp was a thick labyrinth of tattoos: thorny vines and rows of foreign text. She was a world-weary woman, but she might have smiled a bit at the sight of her own face.
The room was ice-cold. The woman took candles and set them alight with her fingertips, arranging them carefully on the duvet. Twelve large eggs, warm enough for now.
A fly had gotten in. She could hear it buzzing. “Get out!” she hissed. The insect dropped, iridescent wings still fluttering, the cogs in its body still turning.
In the lobby, the jangle of the woman’s coat woke the receptionist. He lifted his balding head up from the counter and grinned at her, unfazed by her appearance. “Well, good morning.”
“Turn. Them. On.”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me before. The radiators are broken.”
“LIAR!” The guest lunged across the counter at the receptionist. “I know you’re lying,” she spat, her face covered in angry lavender spots. “Where’s the boiler room?”
“I know you don’t need the heat,” the man goaded. “How come you’re so desperate?”
“I’M NOT DESPERATE!” the woman roared. She stumbled to her feet.“Where is it?”
“I don’t recall. Perhaps down some infinitely long hallway.”
“I know that’s not how it works.”
“No, you don’t know.”
The walls and floor of the lobby convulsed. The chandelier crashed to the floor and shattered.
“Perhaps some electrical system is down as well,” the receptionist deadpanned, gripping the desk for support. “I’ll have to get that checked right away.” The woman glowered at him.
In a moment, they both realized the same thing.
She screeched in panic and sprinted out the door, somehow steady as the tremors increased. She bolted up the stairs at a superhuman pace.
Smoke hung in the corridor. The woman’s heart dropped. She reached for the sizzling doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge. No, the key!
240 billion stories below, the receptionist flipped the key in his Reaper-thin fingers.
She roared in frustration and pounded on the door with burning crocodilian fists. It fell and was quickly drowned in a river of smoke.
The woman coughed and rushed inside. The candles were puddles of wax sinking into the bedspread. She ripped open the bag, then doubled over, turning solidly lemon-yellow. Seven eggs lay cracked and charred by fire’s fingers. Their shells had splintered, revealing the dark shapes of their heads. And where were the rest?
It seemed the woman cried for hours. Her children, tiny and gentle, were never to feel joy when they saw their own eyes reflected in the mirror. Never to feel the sting of a new tattoo gracing their little heads. They were already gone.
Although the fire alarms had sounded, the hallways had remained empty of other guests. The woman was oblivious to this, distracted by her simmering rage. In the elevator, the operator was nowhere to be seen. When the doors slid open, the Infinity Hotel’s only and final guest stood as a changed woman. Her tears had hardened to diamond trails engraved in the planes of her face. Her skin, once the softness of human flesh, had turned to rigid armor.
An uneven-eyed man examined a gritty powder in his seven-fingered grasp. It wasn’t fine enough. He dropped it into a bucket and stirred the mixture vigorously, as if it were a vat of butter.
“Finally,” the receptionist grumbled, shuffling over. “You’re finished.” He handed the man a backpack. “Here. They go behind my desk to use next time.”
The man gazed at the bag as he took it, testing the weight. “Yes, sir,” he said softly.
“Now hurry on back to the lobby. You too! Get to work!” the receptionist added to the workers crowding the laundry room, each with identical vats of paste. They filed out, tripping over wash-buckets and chatting about the weather.
The receptionist unlocked a heavy door. He slipped inside, taking it in the spectacle.
In a few hours, using his curiously powerful concoction, he had built a replica of the hotel. It stretched to the ceiling, levels upon levels until he couldn’t see the top. It was his pride and joy. He liked to think he was like King Khufu, the pharaoh who ordered the Pyramids of Giza to be built.
The Infinity Hotel would appear suddenly, sometimes in the middle of town, sometimes in the middle of an ocean. No one seemed to think it was strange, the pillar of brick stretching into the clouds, blocking out the sun for a night. But it always caught the attention of one particular traveler, always a mother, always concealing scales and tattoos with wigs and strange attire. Always hiding eggs in her suitcase.
The receptionist would add the vacant-eyed shells that wandered the corridors. They’d populate the hotel like dolls in a dollhouse, one that could topple at a snap of his Reaper-thin fingers.
The lobby was a long stretch of goldfish-colored chairs clustered among tables displaying plastic orchids and newspapers. The lethargic stillness was interrupted by a shuffle of papers. The woman hadn’t seen him at first, but there was a thin man sitting at the piano in the lobby, organizing sheet music.
“Hello, ma’am,” he said as the woman stalked towards him. “Isn’t it a bit late to be up?”
“Isn’t it a bit early to be working?”
“That’s what I’ve always thought,” he replied. “But I don’t really have a choice.”
The woman tilted her head to the side, listening.
“Is there something you need help with?” the man asked, after a silence. She stared at him, and he somehow seemed to understand.
“I’m sorry. I’ll just start playing, then,” he said, coughing. He moved his dress shoe to the side. Propped up against the piano leg was the bag with the untouched eggs.
The woman stared at the bag. Then back at him.
Then she snatched it and ran as the man began to play Chopin with nimble, seven-fingered hands.
The woman had tracked the receptionist down through the labyrinth of corridors behind the front desk. She could hear his whistling coming from behind an imposing entrance.
A trio of wolf spiders scurried in as she pushed open the rounded, carved doors. The woman paused as her irises expanded.
The only light came from a panel of stained glass far above, where it landed upon a blue shaft of dust. The walls were distant and engulfed in shadow.
The whistling had stopped. She took a step further onto the checkered tile. The whistling started again.
“Where are you?” The woman spat. Seconds passed as her words traveled across the room. But when the echoes subsided, she could make out the incessant whir of a fly.
She treaded further in, far beneath the chandeliers and their twisted cords of crystal. Then, bang! A door slammed shut beyond the ballroom. The woman’s head whipped around and she hurried towards it.
It was a laundry room, dank and smothered in ceiling pipes. The receptionist’s back was to the woman; he was hunched over something on the floor. “Hello,” he said pleasantly, to the opposite wall. She screamed, long and ragged, and lifted him off the concrete as if he weighed no more than a spider.
He snickered obnoxiously, though it was difficult to do with dignity suspended in the air.
“Stop talking,” she hissed. “You’re not leaving this room alive.”
“What do you think you even know?”
Something about his tone of voice invoked the early note of panic in her mind. The woman stepped back. At her feet, among washboards and buckets, was the mortar and pestle. She lifted a handful of grit from the bowl. It was the texture of sand, almost completely ground up. But as the grains seeped through her fingers, the larger pieces remained, smooth and curved and speckled.
Eggshells.
“What – no.” She looked up at the receptionist and her voice flipped to a deathly tone. “How many?”
“Too many to count,” he replied. “Almost…infinite.” Another guffaw. “You know, it always surprises me, all of you. Always going on about wanti–”
Crrrackk! The woman lowered the dented washboard. Motorized flies and bits of eggshell spilled out of the gash in the man’s head, rustling like plastic beads.
The woman stepped over his body and into the closet with the hotel model. It loomed and she watched it fall. Fragments rained down, reverted to dust, like a dried-out sandcastle returning to the waves.
She scooped her backpack up and ran to the lobby. The pianist remained, his fingers tripping over the keys, slower now and out of sync. The woman stretched her lips across rows of sea-blue teeth and the man grinned broadly back at her. Then his fingers stilled on the piano and released a single, jubilant chord as he collapsed. His head struck the ivory next, creating a jarring amalgamation of notes that spread across the lobby, then began their dreadful march to silence.
The woman emerged from the entrance awning. The first rays of daylight had dawned, and they outlined little clouds and bathed the world in gold. Finally, a view of the sun. It was the first time she felt warm inside since she’d checked in.
Someone walked by, huffing in the chilly air. They ogled at the woman: her panther-like eyes, her iridescent skin, the lines of poetry etched onto her scalp. She glared back.
Behind her, the Infinity Hotel stood resolutely still, cemented to the earth. Trillions of rows of windows and brick yawned like a bridge to the sun. But the woman didn’t have time to marvel at its impossible existence. She, after all, was impossible too. So she straightened her back and headed into the morning, coat bells ringing crisply, as the Infinity Hotel toppled behind her.
Inspire is a UVA | Northern Virginia academic summer program for rising 10th-12th graders to explore new interests and skills. Creative Writing is a one-week, virtual, course that provides students with the time, space, and guidance to focus deeply on their own writing. Each day combines short lectures, generative exercises, and guided workshops designed to help students build a sustainable writing routine and explore their voice. Bring your creativity to life this summer in the Inspire 2026 creative writing course!
Applications open December 1! Mark your calendar and sign up to be the first to know when they launch: