Write What Hasn’t Been Written

A Tribute to the Writing Legacy of Dr. Wyona Freysteinson

Lisa Kelly, MSN, RN

Writer’s Camp Counselor

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Some mentors teach us how to write; others challenge us to write what has not yet been written.

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“Lisa, your one job is to write what hasn’t been written.”

Of all the things Dr. Wyona Freysteinson said to me over the years, that is the phrase that remains.

There are many reasons nursing will remember Wyona. She will be remembered for her scholarship, her contributions to nursing science, her mentorship, and the questions she asked that changed the way we think about the human experience. Others will tell those stories better than I can.

This is a different story. This is the story of a sentence.

I do not remember exactly when she first said it. I only remember that by the time she did, I had already spent months being challenged in ways I did not always appreciate. Wyona had a remarkable ability to see potential in people before they could see it in themselves. She was not afraid to push. She was not afraid to challenge assumptions. She was certainly not afraid to tell you when she thought you were capable of more.

Like many doctoral students, I have a knack for over thinking everything. I want to account for every possibility, examine every angle, and build increasingly complex explanations for questions that have simpler answers.

Then one day she told me to stop making everything so complicated.

“Lisa, your one job is to write what hasn’t been written.”

What is remarkable to me now is that she was not giving me permission.

She was giving me a directive.

Write what hasn’t been written.

Not what is easy to write. Not what everyone else is writing. Not what feels safe. Write what has not yet been said.

To Wyona, it really was that simple. 

At the time, I thought she was talking about a manuscript. Not long after, I realized she was talking about something much larger. She was describing the responsibility of scholarship itself.

After hearing of her passing, I started to wonder how many other people heard that same message from Wyona. How many students, colleagues, and emerging scholars sat across from her and received the same challenge. How many dissertations were started because of it. How many manuscripts were submitted because someone heard her voice reminding them that the profession did not need another repetition of what was already known.

It needed someone willing to write what had not yet been written.

The true measure of a scholar is not only the work they produce themselves. It is also the work they make possible in others.

When I think about Wyona’s legacy, I think about the articles, presentations, and research that carry her name. But I also think about the countless pages that do not. The ideas she encouraged. The confidence she built. The questions she challenged people to ask. The writers she challenged into existence.

That legacy is harder to see, but it is no less real.

It lives in every student who decided to pursue a difficult question.

It lives in every researcher who chose curiosity over convention.

It lives in every writer who sat down and put words on a page because someone once told them their job was to say something new.

Perhaps that is one of Wyona’s less visible gifts to our profession.

Not just the scholarship she produced, but the scholarship that she made possible.

And if we are looking for a way to honor her, perhaps it is as simple as following the instruction she gave.

Write what hasn’t been written.

And now, the rest is up to us.

Author: Lisa Kelly

Reviewed and Edited by: Leslie H. Nicoll

Copyright © 2026 Writer’s Camp and Lisa Kelly. CC-BY-ND 4.0

Citation: Kelly L. Write what hasn’t been written: A tribute to the writing legacy of Dr. Wyona M. Freysteinson. The Writer’s Camp Journal, 2(2):15. doi:10.5281/zenodo.20750435