Students joined together to start the creative writing club to generate a more collaborative creative community on campus.

Junior creative writing, French and English triple major Clover McEntarffer said the club began last semester as a desire to share their love for writing with others.

“I wanted a space to share my love of writing. A lot of us are dedicating our lives to writing and literary citizenship, some of us just love writing. No matter who or why, we’re all artists and deserve a community to share our work in,” McEntarffer, the club’s president, said. “This is an active community practice that I found myself desiring. Writing also often felt like a solitary act to me. I believe that this challenged my perception in a way that I needed to grow as a writer.”

McEntarffer said the club “all came together” after contacting creative writing professor Sandy Longhorn who helped spread the word.

“She had mentioned that other students had been interested when I brought up the idea of starting one,” McEntarffer said. “At the first meeting, we collected emails and the students were asked if anyone was interested in continuing to organize everything. It just kind of happened that I became president.”

The club’s founding members all joined with the purpose of generating fellowship among student writers.

Junior creative writing major Aithne Emmons, the club’s secretary, said, “I like to say that I tripped and fell into an executive position. I have really enjoyed the work that I have been able to do, however, to foster this community of writers.”

Junior writing as information design and creative writing double major Erick Montoya said, “I was relatively new to the creative writing program and enjoyed my time so much to the point that I felt that more people should know about it, especially friends in the WRID program.”

Montoya is the club’s social media manager and helps promote club meetings by making flyers.

Junior film and creative writing major Skylar Nelsen, the club’s treasurer, said she joined the club because “every major should have a club for that major.”

Nelsen said that as the president of UCA’s film club, she has “seen how it has helped grow our [film] community” and she “thought a creative writing club should do the same.”

The creative writing club strives to move creative writing practices beyond the classroom and into the real world.

Emmons said, “We think that it is very important for students to have access to a community with which they can share their writing, practice regular writing habits, and develop new skills. In the writing world, having connections with people who are willing to serve as beta readers, sensitivity readers and even just regular supporters of your writing work is important. While this is something that being a part of a school’s writing program can begin to facilitate, creating a creative writing club allows students who are interested in this specific community type to connect with each other, potentially in a more familiar way than they would be able to achieve in a classroom setting.”

The club encourages students to share and engage with writing prompts, voluntary public readings and community announcements. The group is enthusiastic about expanding its activities to include interactions with authors and literary professionals around central Arkansas.

McEntarffer said, “We absolutely want to expand outside of meetings.”

Emmons agreed, stating, “We are planning to hold some events, both more low-key events that are geared towards allowing the members to socialize and build community with each other, and larger events such as traveling to author talks, conducting on-campus readings, or learning about different aspects of the literary world.”

Montoya said, “In the future, I’d like to make social media pages that promote the work being done in the club as well as promoting literary events taking place in central Arkansas.”

The club communicates largely through Google Classroom where they post updates about future meetings and events.

For its next event, the club will host professor Longhorn featuring a talk on how to submit creative work for publication.