A love of writing and the goal of improving writing skills is what connects like minded students in the Writer’s Guild club. Allowing students to share their stories, the club produces a literary magazine that gets passed out at the end of the year to other students.

“It’s called the Raven, and basically we take any submissions from around the school from anyone, you can be anonymous, you can get the credit,” senior Katie Love said. “And we put them all together in one big magazine that we distribute at the end of the year.”

Creating an annual magazine gives the club an opportunity to share their stories with the school.

“I really like the literary magazine at the end of the year, it’s really cool,” sponsor Josh Melton said. “Last year was the first year we did that and I was stoked about it and we gave them away during lunch and advisory and people seemed to enjoy it.”

The club usually discusses different authors and stories at the meetings along with writing from certain prompts.

“I prepare a history PowerPoint about the author we are learning about for that meeting,” club president Giorgia Mastrolorenzo said. “It will go into detail about their background, what they have written, and how they have impacted the world of literature. Ultimately we cover how to maybe integrate their style into our own and what we can learn about their form of expression.”

Beyond learning about established authors, the Writer’s Guild provides an open environment for students to share their writing and grow as writers without being judged.

“The Writer’s Guild is a place where you can come whenever you need maybe some help, feedback, even just a place to hang out and learn more about the literary world,” Mastrolorenzo said. “No one is intimidating it’s just a place where we get to enjoy snacks, become better writers and kindle a new hobby. I hear everyone saying ‘oh no I suck at writing’ but it isn’t about becoming the next Fitzgerald or J.R.R. Tolkien, we all have things to improve on and doing it with people who have a passion for it is really motivating.”

With only a few members, the Writer’s Guild is looking forward to growing in size and having more stories to contribute at meetings.

“It’d be nice to have more stories to share at meetings rather than us just talking,” Love said. “So, having more members and having more people submit stuff for the Raven are some goals I have for the club because I think a lot of people are scared to do so, but you can definitely do it anonymously if that’s what you’re scared of.”

According to Melton, the club helps students gain courage to share their stories on campus and connect with people who have the same passion as them.

“You discover so much about maybe these people you’ve been in classes with, that you never knew were such good prolific readers or writers,” Melton said. “And that’s a really cool way to get to know people and come together and share your love of something, in this case, reading and writing with other people.”