Every first Tuesday of the month, students and alumni are invited to join Pluma, the student-run creative writing club on campus. From 2:30 to 5 p.m., participating students indulge into writing their own pieces with conductive prompts while also analyzing other forms of creative writing pieces.
In the first meeting of May, five students gathered together along professor Christopher Rosales, who has a creative writing doctorate and fine arts master’s degree. Melanie Polanco, a drawing and painting major, also conducts the club by handing out prompts for students to practice their creative writing skills.
Last meeting, the prompt was about synesthesia, a phenomenon in which your brain makes connections between senses and sensory information and can cause someone to experience more than one sense simultaneously.
All five participants and Rosales had five minutes to write a creative piece of their choice. Later, everyone shared their creations with the others.
“In this creative writing club, we believe in fair constructive criticism but to remember that when it comes to creative writing, there are no right or wrong answers,” Rosales said.
Pluma also stands as a club that welcomes people who come from different backgrounds. That is because the club’s name, Pluma, is a Spanish translation for a quill, an old writing tool.
Pluma is known for being a safe space for students who come from minority backgrounds to share their own thoughts and opinions on how writing has helped them as a form of expression.
As the club moves forward to the next semester, they are weighing options to make the meetings more frequent and also hope to take field trips together to various writing events.
If you are interested in finding a safe space on campus to explore creative writing please feel free to reach out to Professor Rosales or head to the MHB in the El Centro room the first Tuesday of every month.