After a long period of inactivity Foothills Creative Writing Club is back in business, and hopes to act as the premier cultivator of students’ literary creativity and inspiration. Besides serving students as they write, they also plan to put a spotlight on student work through a physical magazine release, and are currently taking submissions.

Lan Nguyen, the current president, was instrumental in the club’s reactivation in the third week of Spring Quarter. Lan describes that she had for some time wanted a “hub for creative writing” on campus, and with the opening of the Linguistic Justice Center, where there meetings take place, she saw the perfect opportunity. Though eager to get the ball rolling on their club’s magazine, Lan describes that the Creative Writing Club is not meant to just be a space for editorial or submission concerns. Nguyen also wants this to be a place where students can explore their creativity, saying that she wants to “have that space for people to discover that creative aspect going on, outside of schoolwork. That’s another thing I want our club to do.”

The contents of their club meetings perfectly represent this goal. At times they have deeply discussed literary works and logistical plans for the club. Other times they have followed a more free-form structure, going with what the attending members are feeling on that day. One meeting revolved around an activity where members would write a short story collaboratively. Every attendant had their own idea, and would write down a paragraph or two to start it off. After five minutes elapsed, they would pass the story to the person next to them, and would receive the story of the person on their other side. This continued until their original draft came back to them, at which point it would be a complete narrative. Members would read out each story, and listened with a close ear as they discovered how their parts contributed to the story, and the twists and turns that took place as students left their own unique mark on each work. Below is an example of one story written during the meeting, with six writers working on it:

(1) It was damp. Dark, too.

I felt my arm raise, made my fingers clench with the squeaky squish of wet flesh.

Still, I saw nothing.

(2) I try to breath, and yet keep silent. The burning in my chest slowly expanding while my surroundings squeeze and suffocate me.

(3) The air tastes like soil and blood. Something slick drips onto my face.

(4) The sweat pouring down my face mixes with the air, cooling my face as I turn around to see darkness behind me.

(5) Out of the dark dark emerges a frog. As pathetic as myself, or is it myself of the past, no, I’m always so stupid, I think. I take another breath, trying to ignore them.

(6) In the distance I see a light and start to run towards it. Suddenly I’m in a room full of people and a man in glasses walks up to me and asks “so…how did it feel to die”?

Another thing they plan to do during meetings is read out some of the submissions to their magazine, and though the planning stages for it are still somewhat early, they are open to receiving submissions from Foothill Students. You can find their form here.

If you want to learn more about the Creative Writing Club, then a great way to get connected to the club is in their Discord server, which you can join here. They plan to do a revamp of the server soon, and new additions could include a channel for anonymous submissions, a brainstorming hub, and a channel for short stories or writing challenges!