Glendale Community College’s Language and Communication Pathway hosted its first-ever Creative Writing Night on April 2, an evening of literary workshops, collaboration, and community.
The Creative Writing Night took place in the Student Center. The event was created for those who are interested in creative writing and were looking for the chance to learn and practice it in a very collaborative and warm atmosphere. I, for one, also participated in the event doing the poetry workshop. I was greatly impressed by the activity, particularly the poetry workshop.
The event was open to students, faculty, staff and all members of the community enjoying creative writing. The writing night was a wonderful opportunity for faculty members as well, who were looking for connection with others in the community. It gave a chance to communicate and express oneself through different genres of writing. According to Romy Griepp, one of the event participants, who is a faculty member in the Sociology department, she was highly impressed. “I could tell a lot of planning and thought went into the format, scheduling, and content of the evening. I also really enjoyed the overall goals, which were to highlight the excellence of each advisor as well as showcase individual brilliance from each group (from what I recall, the groups were poetry, screenwriting, fiction and nonfiction). I engage with other events quite often” Griepp said. “I’ve learned from pretty much every department on campus, and this was my opportunity to learn from our incredible English professors. I cannot recall an event quite like this one, so I was really excited to get this opportunity. I had a wonderful time, and I hope they lead a series based on the success of this one workshop!” Griepp also added.
The participants could meet the GCC creative writing faculty in the process of learning more about the creative writing class and joining one of four workshops to study and practice writing. For instance, the workshop in poetry was conducted by Kate Martin Rowe, who teaches writing at GCC and curates the annual GCC Student Reading Series. Rowe holds an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from California State University Northridge and an M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her poems and nonfiction have also appeared in The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Brevity, Hotel Amerika, Askew, Zyzzyva, VOLT, The Denver Quarterly, Angel City Review, Chaparral, Requited, and The Beloit Poetry Journal. During the Poetry workshop at the Creative Writing Night, Kate gave participants the chance to study elegy and ode by reading, analyzing and discussing them and showed the power and possibility of self-expression through poetry. After discussions, there was a writing exercise to draw five words and write a poem. Later on, the participants read their poems out loud and discussed their significance.
The Writing Night also had workshops in narrative writing, studying fiction, memoirs and different kinds of stories the participants wanted to tell. There was also a playwriting workshop, which discussed the writing that comes on screens or stages and exploratory writing. The event was followed by snacks and refreshments provided by Glendale College Foundation and live music by the Guerra/paz band.
For more information on GCC’s Creative Writing Night, visit the link here.
Zhanna Kazazyan can be reached at [email protected].