Grace Cavanaugh ~ Staff Writer
The Creative Writers of the University of Lynchburg, or CWUL, is a new club that was started at the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year.
The president, Kamryn Schnieder, is a sophomore, liberal arts major who started the club with friends from the ENGL 205 Intro to Creative Writing class.
“When I got to college, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life,” said Schnieder. “[I] took Creative Writing on a whim. I did not really write before I took the class and was like, ‘This is cool, but I want to do slightly different stuff with the same kind of style.’”
Larry Hamlett, a sophomore graphic design major, is the secretary of the club. “I wanted to essentially have a space where people could go to if they were not satisfied with the already available creative writing classes on campus and have another place to workshop more in depth.”
Workshopping is one of the activities that the club offers. “Workshopping is taking a piece and looking through it, giving people constructive criticism to improve,” said Hamlett. Schnieder said, “The club does workshopping which is similar to the class, where you write up a piece, you bring it in, and people tell you what they like and what they did not like. In that way, both the writer and the people critiquing the piece can see what they like doing, what they like reading, and how they can improve or change those certain areas.”
Besides workshopping, the club also does live readings. Schnieder said, “We do live readings […] which is where a person will bring in a piece and instead of workshopping it, we will read it live. That way, they can hear how it would sound when someone is reading it and people can give live feedback and also just get used to speaking in front of people.”
The club offers games and other writing activities, too. Cameron Short, a sophomore computer science major and one of the founders of the club, said, “We do questionnaires. […] We world build, which is one of my specialties. We just kind of have fun with worlds that we create, the stories we write.”
Schnieder added, “And we also just finished up the Character Games, which is like the Hunger Games but with the characters from our stories. And that was fun. I won, not to brag.”
The club is open to all writers, including poets and playwrights.
“We meet on Fridays from 4:00 to 6:00 [p.m.],” said Hamlett. Schnieder added, “We meet in Schewel, sometimes Room 217, which is where we have been meeting for the past couple weeks, and then before that we met in 232. So we use a big room.”
“We also have a Discord,” said Schnieder. “I do not have a code off the top of my head, but if you email me, I can send you the code.”
She continued, “We have different channels for things that are more focused on the club and then we have things that are not necessarily writing specifically, but you can still ask questions to the club members. I post some art in there every now and then, Larry also posts art, Grace posts art, and world building advice. We do, like, ask a character, which is a character development and building and stuff like that.”
“We currently only have five, sometimes six members, so show up please,” said Schnieder. “You do not have to be good at writing.” Short added, “Feel free to stop by.”
For more information or to join the club, Schnieder said to, “Email me. […] My email is schnieder_k@lynchburg.edu.”
