Photo by JESHOOTS from Pexels
By Samuel Hoffman, Staff Writer
Creative Writing Day, hosted on Monday Nov. 4, is an annual open house sponsored by the creative writing department to introduce prospective students to the field of creative writing and to the major offered at Susquehanna.
At the event,students were able to meet members of the department and gain insight on their new and current ideas for pieces.
Unlike most colleges, which only offer English majors with an emphasis in creative writing, Susquehanna has a major dedicated to the subject, which draws in prospective students.
The prospective students assembled in the Degenstein theater at 10 a.m. where they were welcomed by associate professor Glen Retief and other professors. The faculty members, including Retief, associate professor Catherine Dent and assistant professors Matthew Neil Null and Monica Prince, along with some student readers proceeded to read some original pieces.
Dent said “The readings in the morning were fantastic; I especially loved Monica Prince’s performances and a reading by my new colleague, Matthew Neil Null, whose story ‘Gauley Season’ enthralled the audience.”
Students were then taken to lunch and on tours of the campus. They then met up with the faculty of the creative writing department to work on their own personal pieces. Students were given eight different options for their workshops: journalism, sports journalism, novels, fantasy, performance writing, poetry, screenwriting or short stories.
The variety allowed for everyone to find a place for their own style. Additionally, the program hosted a new event: a workshop for teachers, led by Dent.
“I led a workshop for high school teachers in the Writer’s Institute where the teachers participated in their own fiction workshop and learned some techniques to take back to their own classrooms,” Dent said.
Students who chose the journalism workshop got help from senior feature writing students. Instead of normal class, students helped and revised the visiting high school students work, giving them tips and insight on how to make their writing even better.
Creative Writing Day gives prospective students a chance to experience what creative writing is like at Susquehanna and get feedback from both college students and college professors, as well as experience the campus community.
