Chatham Students Take the Stage at Rea Coffee House Reading

Author: Iyanna Armwood

To celebrate the creative mind, the Spring 2017 Rea Coffee House Reading Series was held on March 16, 2017 in Chatham University’s Julia and James Rea House basement. The reading series is held once every semester. Many of Chatham University’s undergraduate writers submit pieces to read. This spring the feature readers chosen anonymously by the Creative Writing Club were Lee Marsh, Carsyn Smith, Iris Marzolf, Claire Wozniak and Anniston Bieri. This was followed by an open mic where anyone could come up and share their own pieces.

Contine reading

Creative Writing Club upgrades from Spit Reel to the Rea Coffeehouse Reading Series

The goal of the Chatham University Creative Writing Club (CWC), according to its mission statement on the University’s website, is to, “unite Chatham undergraduate writers and to further the development of their writing skills.”

One of the ways that the club accomplishes this goal is through it’s yearly reading series which provides students with opportunities to workshop their prose and poetry pieces, and read them to an audience of like-minded individuals with the goal of gaining experience and improving their writing.

The CWC’s reading series, however, recently underwent a change in structure as the former “Spit Reel,” gave way to the new and improved “Rea Coffeehouse Reading Series,” which had its premiere in the Rea Coffeehouse on Thursday, November 20.

The event, emceed by CWC advisor Lorena Williams, showcased five featured readers and included an open-microphone portion for anyone in reading their original works.

The series debut was a great success and student reactions to it were positive, but many were interested in the cause of the change, which impacted the name, format, and location of the event.

According to Terensky, “The name of our reading series officially changed over the summer,” which was just in time to begin planning for the event on November 20.

“The Creative Writing Club felt that Spit Reel was not a very clear name for the undergraduate reading series,” Brittanie Terensky, CWC president, later explained.

A lot of people would tell us how they would have come to the event if they would have known what it was; the name just didn’t convey that it is a reading series.”

The event on Nov. 20 reflected this opinion, as there was an excellent turnout, and the open microphone portion of the event was dominated by people outside of the creative writing major.

“The Creative Writing Club always encourages everybody to submit for Featured Reader and to read at open mic, regardless of major, so it was great to see other students branching out and reading at our event,” Terensky said in response to this.”

Additionally, the format of the reading series changed from taking place twice a semester to only taking place once a semester, the number of featured readers rose from three to five, and the time allotted for each featured reader increased for eight minutes to 15 minutes.

Describing the process of choosing the featured readers, Terensky said, “Featured Readers submit their work to our club advisor, Lo Williams, and the CWC’s officers receive them anonymously. The officers then go through the submissions and decide which work is the strongest.”

The process does not end there, however, as they also, “offer those individuals a workshop with the club where we can all look over the submissions and talk about how they are going to read out loud and how to make them stronger.”

“I was very happy with the event. I think there was a great turnout and we had some amazing readers,” Terensky said of the event.

In response to the new format and location, she said, “having the reading series in Rea Coffeehouse completely changes the atmosphere of the event, which we were all so happy with. The CWC’s undergraduate reading series is definitely at home in the Rea Coffeehouse.”

Creative Writing Club hosts brand new Rea Coffeehouse Reading Series

The historically graffitied walls of the Rea Coffeehouse—displaying years worth of famous quotes, poetic verse, feminist slogans, and humorous catch phrases—captured the mood of the evening on Thursday, November 20, as Chatham University’s Creative Writing Club hosted it’s first ever Rea Coffeehouse reading series.

Although technically starting at 7:00 p.m., there was a period of socializing at the beginning of the event during which people chatted, ate pastries, and drank coffee and tea out of ceramic cups that were being sold for a dollar each as a fundraiser for the club.

Eventually people made their way to the main room of the coffee house, where chairs were set up in front of a small stage.

After a brief welcome from the Creative Writing Club’s President, Brittanie Terensky-Rees, the emcee for the evening, Lorena Williams, was invited to the stage, amidst enthusiastic applause.

“I feel like I won something,” she joked, after doing two victory laps around the stage.

She then introduced sophomore Jess Turner, the evening’s first featured reader.

Turner read both poetry and prose, ending with a short story about the interweaving lives of Anthony, a veteran suffering from alcoholism, and Mary, and young girl struggling with issues of self-harm.

Photo Credit: Katerina Sarandou

Photo Credit: Katerina Sarandou

The evening’s second featured reader, and the only one not majoring in Creative Writing, was Senior Catherine Giles.

Giles’s first piece was a poem entitled, “To Earth, with love,” and contained such poignant lines as, “where do you bury the Earth, when there is no Earth left to bury?”

Her second piece, entitled “Tattoos,” was about the mental and emotional scars that a mother inflicted on a daughter as she pressured her to conform to social standards.

Giles performed with intense emotion, reading in a way that made each audience member feel that she was speaking directly to them.

After a round of applause, Williams returned to the stage, making friendly conversation with the audience about the graffiti on the walls.

“Some of these really inappropriate ones I’m sure none of you wrote,” she joked, following it up by saying, “actually, they’re all pretty inappropriate.”

After a few more graffiti related comments, Williams welcomed senior Kit Gigliotti to the stage.

Gigliotti began with two fairly serious pieces of poetry, but ended with a hilarious prose account of the struggles of caring for a sick seeing eye dog while in another country–specifically France.

She talked about rushing through the Louvre in order to get back to her dog, and at one point described the Mona Lisa as, “a square dark spot on a big white wall.”

Upon returning to the stage, Williams talked with the audience about travel and described her college travel experience, saying, “I think I was a sophomore in college. I decided to live in a van in Mexico for a month.”

The fourth reader of the evening was first year Rachel Geffrey, who performed poetry about the loss of friendship.

Photo Credit: Katerina Sarandou

Photo Credit: Katerina Sarandou

“You can’t begrudge me an interest in your life; that’s what friends do,” she said, the emotion of the words obvious in her performance.  She continued, “This is your loss, stranger.  I am your loss.”

“There were some good little snippets in there that we might need to write on some of these walls,” Williams later said, clearly impressed by the piece.

She then introduced the last featured reader of the evening, Indigo Baloch, who was meet with a raucous round of applause, and responded with equal enthusiasm as she ran onto the stage.

Baloch began with a prose piece about a girl and her mob-boss father. It told the story of the day the father declared his daughter his heir, but made her prove herself by killing one of his workers, a man with whom she had been close growing up.

Baloch followed with a poem that she mentioned was featured in the fall edition of the Minor Bird, Chatham’s literary magazine.

After Baloch’s performance, Williams complimented the accent that she had used through the prose piece. Then there was a brief intermission during which people socialized, ate, painted on walls, and listened to the music that played softly throughout the basement coffee house.

Despite fears that no one would participate in the open microphone portion of the evening, three people signed up to read including junior Phoebe Armstrong, first year Pearl McCann, and junior Ashley Nicholson.

Photo Credit: Katerina Sarandou

Photo Credit: Katerina Sarandou

All three performed poetry pieces, with Armstrong even reading a piece that her dad texted her, and afterwards Williams complemented them by saying, “There are some people in this room that need to declare minors in creative writing.

She even joked with Armstrong, saying, “Starting next year your dad could be in Chatham’s creative writing program.”

Afterwards, first year audience member Stephanie Ramser expressed enthusiasm about the event, although she explained that it was Williams’ persona that stood out to her.

“Lorena’s commentary was amazing,” she said, as another person across the room chimed in with, “Lorena is a goddess.”

The performers were also enthusiastic, including McCann, who said that she had never read her poetry in front of an audience before.

“I like to write,” she said, “[but I thought] it would be weird to make it public.  I didn’t want other people’s biases to change the way I make art.”

She then explained that she just decided to take a chance by reading her piece, and she was glad that she did.

The Rea Coffeehouse Readings will occur again next semester, and anyone interested in being a featured reader can submit work to the Creative Writing Club.

Chatham’s Creative Writing Club dances the night away for charity

On Saturday, September 20, if you happened to venture to Buhl Hall after following a sign and a life-sized scrabble board, upon entering the Kresge Atrium you would walk into a room that Willy Wonka himself would envy. With giant lollipops, mints all around, and mini candies to complement them–keeping with the Candy Land theme–Chatham students participated in the Creative Writing Club’s first Dance-A-Thon.

Wanting to do a different kind of fundraiser, collaborating with the Beyond the Page Book Club, the Creative Writing Club opted to have a Dance-A-Thon. With Hall and Oates playing in the background and some dressed in costumes reminiscent of the lollipop guild, Chatham students danced to raise money for the Afghan Women’s Writing Project.

The Afghan Women’s Writing Project is a seven-year-old organization that believes that the ability to tell a person’s story is a human right.

“As soon as we found this organization, we knew it was the perfect fit for the club,” said Brittanie Terensky, President of the Creative Writing Club. “We, as a club, encourage Chatham students to tell their stories through writing, which is what AWWP does for those women in Afghanistan who need that kind of outlet. Plus AWWP is a project focused on empowering women, which just makes it an even better cause to give to.”

The Dance-A-Thon lasted for twelve hours from 12 p.m. to 12 a.m., but there was more to the event than just dancing. If a participant needed a break there was plenty to do; movies, contests, tie dye, face painting, dodge ball, limbo, and of course games of Candy Land were available.

Although this was the first year that this particular event took place, those who were in charge were happy with the outcomes. Some of the highlights of the event mentioned by those in charge were the elaborate costumes that guests entered into the costume contest.

Hundreds of dollars were raised for the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, and even after the event, more donations were given.

If you did not attend this year, do not despair. The Creative Writing Club hopes that the Dance-A-Thon can become an annual event.

“This event was a ton of fun and we raised a lot of money so I don’t see why we couldn’t do it again next year,” said Terensky.

The Minor Bird literary magazine launches it’s newest editions

The atmosphere in the Mellon Board room was one of excitement on Saturday April 12, at the launch party for the Chatham University undergraduate literary magazine: The Minor Bird.  Students and faculty, as well as proud family members, milled about and casually chatted with each other as they waited for the event to officially begin.

The room, filled with the scent of Chatham’s ever popular artichoke dip, as well as black bean and cheese quesadillas and mini cheesecakes, was set up with rows of chairs facing a podium from which selected readers from The Minor Bird would read their works later in the evening. A screen at the front of the room displayed a slide show of student art, which complemented the creative atmosphere of the event itself.

Around 5:15 p.m. the crowd began moving towards the seating area as Lorena Williams, faculty advisor for the Chatham Creative Writing Club and The Minor Bird, called for everyone’s attention. After thanking everyone for coming, and giving a brief welcome, she passed the microphone to senior Courtney Druzak–the editor for The Minor Bird.

Druzak then introduced the evening’s guest lecturer, Salvatore Pane, and–despite his dauntingly long and impressive resume–she chose to focus on his contribution to Chatham as a guest lecturer in 2012, which led to applause from his enthusiastic former students in the audience.

As well as being a guest lecture at Chatham, however, Pane is also the author of the novel “Last Call in the City of Bridges”, from which he would be reading for the event. Pane began by thanking his former student, then moved on to reading a selection of poetry. He explained that he is not a poet, but that when he gets stuck while writing prose he likes to look at the Twitter feeds of NBA players, and restructure their tweets into poetry. As he read a piece based on the Twitter feed of New York Knicks player J.R. Smith, the audience laughed at the absurdity of the tweets, and the ridiculous use of hashtags.

lastcall_cover

After his humorous opening, Pane shifted to a more serious tone as he began reading the prologue of his book, which chronicled the night of the 2008 presidential election, from the point of view of the 1st person narrator, Michael. The book told of his sitting alone in his apartment, then going to a local bar to celebrate Barack Obama’s victory, only to be confronted with his ex-girlfriend, and the sister of his deceased best friend.

Pane then moved on to a chapter later in the book, which told of Michael’s experience with the 2004 presidential election, and how he and his friend went into the woods to hide from the inescapable truth of another four years with President George Bush, and the possibility of a draft as the war continued.

Pane’s writing captured the misplaced optimism of his generation. His tone, and the narrator’s reflective personality, perfectly embodied to truth of what it means to be a young adult in today’s society. His reading elicited a huge round of applause from the audience.

After the reading there was a short intermission during which audience members were encouraged to purchase Pane’s book, and pick up copies of The Minor Bird from a table towards the back of the room. There was also a raffle to raise funds for The Minor Bird, which audience members were encouraged to take part in.

At the conclusion of the intermission, Dr. Heather McNaugher, and senior Meaghan Clohessy, announced the winners of the raffle. There were jokes about McNaugher serving as Clohessy’s ‘Vanna White’ during which Dr. McNaugher joked, “your Vanna needs reading glasses”, as she tried to read the names on the raffle tickets. Shortly after, Williams came back to the podium to introduce Professor Ian Riggins, who was to be the MC for the remainder of the event.

Professor Riggins began the second half of the event by making a joke about how technology doesn’t always work, and how he had to run across campus to print his notes during intermission, because his phone wouldn’t load the documents. He then explained that he was going to introduce each reader by reading their answers to the questions, “What is your nightmare summer” and “What movie soundtrack would you choose for your work?”

First in line was senior Ashleigh Fox, who said that her nightmare summer was a cold and rainy one, and her soundtrack would be the one from “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”  She read two selections of poetry that dealt with cancer and the struggles of dealing with it physically and socially. After her, Junior Kaitlyn Lacey read an excerpt from her story “Torchlight” which told of a small village that was attacked by beasts, and a family that was torn apart in the process.

Next, sophomore Monica Ballard and senior Courtney Druzak both read powerful selections of poetry. Ballard’s were entitled “t 1/2” and “Hubris,” Druzak’s was entitled “Dominion.” They were followed by senior Meaghan Clohessy, whose story “The Humbler and the Redeemer” was a humorous account of her experiences while getting lost in London. Senior Margaret Yankovich then took the floor to read two poems, one dealing with the fear of masks (which she had hoped would have a better sounding name than “Maskaphobia”) and the other telling of a young girl who saved moths, and the person she grew up to be. Yankovich was followed by senior Jennifer Swisher, who read an excerpt from her story about a young man working in a button factory, and first-year Jessica Turner, who read two poems entitled “Getting Older” and “I Fell in Love With Your Hands.”

The reading finished with powerful pieces from sophomore Rachael Owen and first-year Indigo Baloch. Owen’s piece, entitled “The L Word,” was a story the difficulties of coming out to parents in a world that treats “lesbian” like a dirty word. Baloch’s piece was a poem called “Reasons Why You Should Never Get in a Car With a Boy From New Jersey With Nothing to Lose”, a piece she jokingly called “The Fall Out Boy poem”, which was about the process of falling in and out of love with a boy.

After the reading, Druzak and Creative Writing Club president Olivia Warren, announced The Minor Bird and Creative Writing Club officers for the next academic year. Then they gave gifts to the faculty who helped with the event, and officially ended the launch party.

The event was a huge success from the point of view of Alice Shy, who will be one of the creative editors for The Minor Bird next year. As she said, she “came to support The Minor Bird”, because “Courtney [Druzak] has been work extremely hard to put it, and the launch party, together.”

Shy also explained how excited she is to be creative editor next year, saying “I will get to use the skills I learned in class, and work with Taylor [Gombar–junior, co-creative editor] to hopefully make The Minor Bird even better in the future.”

Druzak also felt that after the long process of preparation, it was a success. In regards to the process of planning the event, she explained that “Meaghan [Clohessy] and I started planning in October…and we contact Sal [Pane] over Christmas break…then we sat down with the creative Writing Club and Book Club presidents to plan.” She said that it was “exhausting and nerve-wracking, but in the end when you get a crowd like this–a turnout like this–it’s worth it.”

Next year’s editor, Kaitlyn Lacey, echoed similar sentiments, saying that she is “super excited” for next year, and that she is looking forward to “working with all of the writers and the editorial board to make really spectacular issues for next year.”

 

Students gather for Chatham Creative Writing Club’s “Spit Reel”

On Thursday, February 6, the chilly evening was warmed by the Chatham Creative Writing Club’s Spit Reel. An audience of about twenty faculty, staff and students gathered in the Welker Room of Laughlin Music Hall.

Photo Credit: Allison Albitz Courtney Druzak hosts Spit Reel

Photo Credit: Allison Albitz
Courtney Druzak hosts Spit Reel

The event featured three undergraduate writers, and was hosted by senior Courtney Druzak,  co-president of the Creative Writing Club. Druzak began the evening with the disclaimer that it was her first time hosting–as the event’s usual host would be reading later in the evening. Regardless, Druzak did a great job of introducing the event and each of the readers.

The first reader was first year Indigo Baloch. She began with a short story based off the beloved children’s tale of Peter Pan. In this story, Wendy is all grown up and fighting the demons Pan created in her. Baloch then read two heartbreaking and beautifully written poems.

Next up was senior Jenna Swisher, who read a delightful excerpt from a longer piece about a zombie’s attempts to propose to his girlfriend–er–zombie-friend. The excerpt has all the makings of a sweet romantic comedy, but is set in a world of zombies. The detail of the piece was staggering, with Swisher using specific vocabulary that aided in creating the zombie-world. It was the perfect combination of sweet, funny, disgusting and terrifying.

The final reader was senior, and co-president of the Creative Writing Club, Meaghan Clohessy, who read a series of short essays from her senior tutorial about her adventures on her study-abroad trip to Berlin. Clohessy’s pieces had the audience nearly rolling on the floor with laughter that was due in part to the content of the pieces, and in part due to the dry manner in which she presented them. Biting with wit and humor, Clohessy’s pieces were, to understate it, extremely successful with the small audience.

Photo Credit: Allison Albitz Maryann Fix reading at Spit Reel

Photo Credit: Allison Albitz
Maryann Fix reading at Spit Reel

After the initial readings, Druzak invited those in the audience to sign up for their open-mic portion of the evening, which consisted of five minute sections in which anyone could read any piece in any form (two were read from laptops and one was read from a cell phone).

Senior Catherine Giles was the first up to the podium, reading a piece about her redefinition of the ABCs. Next was Emily Kocian, who read a poem bursting with imagery and metaphors. The final reader of the night was Maryann Fix, who read a deeply personal poem.

Overall, the evening was a grand success, full of wonderful new literature and poetry. And to top it off, a great new crop of writers got a chance to share personal, hilarious, heart wrenching, tear-jerking pieces with an audience of appreciative readers and listeners.

Photo Credit: Allison Albitz Meaghan Clohessy reading at Spit Reel

Photo Credit: Allison Albitz
Meaghan Clohessy reading at Spit Reel