On Thursday, Sept. 12, Rowan’s Writing Arts Club held its first weekly meeting of the year in Robinson Hall. Students eagerly gathered in the classroom and tapped into their creativity with the vast amounts of creative writing prompts and group activities put together by the club’s board members. Students had the opportunity to share their work with the rest of their peers if they wished and had time at the end of the meeting to write freely and network with fellow writers. 

Freshman Journalism Major, Hayden Michael Fugee was eager to learn more about the Writing Arts club and to get in touch with his creative side. 

“I love writing short stories, and in my high school even when I did [Camden County] college classes, I never got to meet anyone who was remotely interested in writing,” Fugee said. “And I thought I’d go out and meet my people.”

Junior Writing Arts Major, Luke Cobas has been a member of the club since freshman year, and he spoke on why creative writing organizations are essential for Rowan students.

“The best way to really socialize with people is clubs because during classes, you’re so busy and you’re going in between classes,” said Cobas. “With a club, there’s a more controlled environment.”

Although the meeting primarily attracted fellow writing arts majors, the club welcomed all Rowan students. They aim to attract more non-writing arts students as the semester progresses. The club will continue to meet every Thursday evening from 6:30-8 p.m. in Robinson Hall, Room 202. 

Senior writing arts major Cecilia Combs is the president of the Writing Arts Club, after starting out as the senator. Combs shared a new method she and the rest of the board aim to experiment with this year, in order to spread more information about all the writing resources that are freely available to Rowan students. 

“We’re calling them crossover episodes,” Combs said. “We invite other clubs like Avant or professors or faculty members who wish to participate, to come out and give a mini-lecture, like five to 10 minutes about a writing thing on campus.” 

Although there are many writing resources available on campus for students, Combs aims to make them more well-known to students who may not be as familiar with them.

“We want to do this because we want to make sure that everyone has, like, access to the writing opportunities on campus,” said Combs. “And even if you’re, you know, you’re not a writing arts major, but you want to write for Halftone, you still get to know it exists.” 

Combs is also a tutor at the Rowan Writing Center, located in Savitz Hall, room 242. She encourages students to check out this free writing resource regardless of their major. The Writing Center is there to help students with just about any of their writing assignments, creative or non-creative.  

“It can be about an essay, which is most traditional, but also lab reports,” Combs said. “It can be presentations, as long as there’s text on the slide, or speech, as long as it’s about the writing part of the speech. We like to joke, it can even be like writing a text message. Whatever it is, as long as there’s writing involved, we can help you.” 

Combs hopes that through collaboration with other organizations, students will be able to take full advantage of Rowan’s writing resources. 

“I want to make sure that everyone knows about these resources because even though not everyone is going to be a writer, everyone should get the chance to write,” Combs said.

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