By Lauren Zazzara
Features Editor
Get your creative-writing juices flowing with the new club Writer’s Bloc.
The club will aim to bring together fiction-writing students to workshop their stories by getting feedback from others, said Daniel Ellis, an associate professor of English who is also in charge of the club.
Ellis said the club formed out of earlier groups formed by Chris Mackowski, a journalism and mass communication professor, and other journalism and mass communication faculty.
“The basic idea is that there are a lot of students out there writing on their own—I’m amazed at how many students are out there writing novels and stories,” Ellis said. “Some of them have come through the fiction workshops, some haven’t been able to be in those workshops, but everybody is just looking to get a little feedback on their work.”
Ellis said the group would help bring together writers who may not know how many other writers are in the Bonaventure community.
“So the real idea in bringing the group back is to try to give all these people a way of getting together, finding out about each other’s work, being able to talk shop and offer support, read each other’s work, hear writing strategies and just generally continuing to raise the atmosphere and excitement about writing on campus,” he said.
Even though Ellis said he hopes the club will become a part of the professional and creative writing major that blends elements of the English and journalism and mass communication majors, he said the club will be open to any major.
“I have met so many great writers here from JMC and English, yes, but also from every school and major on campus — all the majors in education and in business, in biology and other sciences, everywhere,” he said. “And a lot of those majors have so many requirements that if a student even wanted to take a workshop for credit, they probably would have a very hard time fitting it in their schedule. So this is also very much for those students to give them an additional outlet.”
Ellen Kibbe, a sophomore English major, and Caitlin Lee, a junior English major, will be co-leaders of the club.
Lee said she looks forward to connecting with other members of the club.
“I want to figure out how to make my writing as effective as possible, so I think this will be a good way to not only improve my own work but to learn with people who find language as important as I do,” Lee said.
Kibbe said she hopes the club will help not only her to reach her goal of becoming a published author, but others as well.
“I think everyone will benefit from the feedback and generation of ideas that group discussions can offer,” she said. “I think this club is a great addition to the already existing literary clubs, Chattertons Slam Poetry club and The BV, by offering another distinct focus of writing.”
The interest meeting was held on Thursday, but Kibbe said that she and Lee are open to suggestions to times and days for weekly meetings. Students interested can contact Kibbe at kibbeem14@bonaventure.edu or Lee at leecm13@bonaventure.edu.
Ellis said he is excited for the club to get started because he also hopes the club’s discussions will help student writers.
“One of the most important parts of writing is being part of a community of writers — hopefully this club will be a community of fiction writers on campus,” he said.
zazzarlm13@bonaventure.edu
