Muse’s First EVER Writing Workshop is This Thursday!

AISG’s Creative Writing Club, also known as Muse, will be holding its first ever writing workshop on Thursday, March 28! It will be held after school in Ms. Barga’s room (317).

The workshop will cover basic ideas such as story breakdown, dialogue, and description. Along with those aspects of writing, an emphasis will be placed upon character profiling, world-building, and species creating. The workshop will be conducted by the coordinator of Muse, Emily A, who, in fact, is a published writer! 

“There will be many worksheets to learn and practice from, and even some for the attendees to take home,” says Emily as she pins up posters which announce the event in front of the Journalism room. She hopes that this event will bring Muse to the forefront and attract more members. Muse has been one of AISG’s more obscure or unknown clubs, with a total of ten members, a number which fluctuates throughout the year because many members have other commitments. “Our club doesn’t reach a lot of people and many seem to be unaware of the fact that we even have a website,” Emily says.

Emily explains that the workshop will be divided into stations in order to facilitate “better discussion, and smoother running.” Regular members of the club will be taking rounds in order to ensure that directions are being understood and doubts are being clarified. Members of Muse are excited for this event to take place, and in fact, will be baking some delicious treats to encourage attendance.

Some food items being offered during the writing workshop are chocolate chip cookies, salted caramel brownies, and popcorn! Prospective attendees are encouraged to bring along their own food if they would like.

Emily believes that Muse has a lot to offer to others because it has a welcoming atmosphere which encourages productivity. She also remarks that Muse offers a certain degree of autonomy due to the fact that its members are free to do whatever they would like as long as it’s based around creative writing. People are allowed to work on whichever style of creative writing they would like too as well, and Emily adds that the club even boasts of a student who focuses on writing screenplays. “It’s very cool to see the club allowing people to explore all these different genres,” she says laughing.

When asked what prompted the idea of conducting the workshop, Emily states, “We do the same thing every meeting. We start with a warmup, proceed on to a free writing session and then share and edit our work in order to post it on our website. I wanted to shake things up a bit and break our usual routine by involving others as well.”

Emily says that the workshop will be informal, maintaining the generally laid back atmosphere of Muse’s weekly meetings. The club is looking for many beginners with an interest in learning or developing their creative writing skills to attend. “Everyone has to start somewhere,” she says, adding that, “basic writing skills are important in almost every field of life whether or not one is interested in story-writing or not.”

For people who are looking to join the Creative Writing Club in the 2019-2020 academic year, this workshop offers them a perfect chance to see whether or not Muse is up their alley.

Anyone who is interested in writing should definitely consider attending Muse’s workshop because it can be greatly beneficial. This opinion is echoed by Emily, who mentions that “having a background in basic literary and creative writing elements and then subsequently being able to apply them to your stories can be really helpful and give you a leg up.”