A Promising Comeback Makes Way for CSI’s Writing Club

By: Lucia Elmi

Anthony Acevedo, the new face of A Reason to Write.

The slow disappearance of CSI’s A Reason to Write club has come as a crushing blow to creative writing enthusiasts and club leaders around the school.

Traffic into the club’s weekly meetings had been suffering for the past few semesters, with little to no students taking part in the club’s activities, which raised questions as to how much longer the club would last.

Elections took place back in the Spring 2018 to reelect the club’s new president, but to no avail. It was confirmed that the club’s run had officially come to an end.

However, Anthony Acevedo, current English major at CSI has stepped up as president to reestablish the club back to its former ranks as one of CSI’s most reputable clubs.

Acevedo heard about the club back in his sophomore days when the club was being run, at the time, by A Reason to Write’s founder, Andrea Curry.

“Fast forward to this semester, I’ve spent a lot of time on and off campus working, and you know—a lot of things have changed. And one of the changes was that the club was gone. I was very taken aback by that since it was a great club.”

Some of the clubs most notable activities were their student-run writing workshops, which included a variety of disciplines such as poetry, creative fiction, and song writing.

Declining club member presence in the club’s weekly meetings led to less workshops, and even less club meetings.

Despite the apparent obstacles, Acevedo made a move to save the club. “I started talking to one of my friends that had already moved on and graduated.

She said, ‘Why don’t you just restart it?’ Debi Kee told me who was still on the books as an officer, and her name is Nana, who’s now our current Vice President. And it just continued to snowball from there.”

Nana Samake, a biology major, was one of the remaining officers from last semester who has now been promoted to vice president.

Acevedo and his team of officers are adamant in helping the club thrive into a functioning outlet for amateur writers who want to expand their passions in writing.

“My leadership and I have been sitting down. We do have planned outings for open mic. We do have planned workshops with certain professors that have agreed to come on next semester and do workshops with us. One of them will involve a journalism workshop with Professor Fioravante.”

As the clubs makes its new kick-off for the spring semester, the officers intend on supporting the college community by encouraging some of their own club members to perform at CSI’s very own open mic. Open mics hosted outside of CSI are up for future consideration.

“We’re going to try some guerilla advertising, if you will. One thing I intend on doing next semester is literally reaching out to every professor I know personally in the English department and talk to their classes about coming out to our club.”

A Reason to Write plans to explore beyond the club’s traditional creative writing sector into other works of writing, such as resume building, nonfiction writing, and even technical writing.

This is in hopes that students from a variety of different academic backgrounds will be encouraged to join the club, and perhaps even develop a newly discovered appreciation for writing in all its forms.

“Scholarly writing is very important. And with the biology and chemistry department, you have people writing lab reports. I myself was a biology major for two years, and then I switched back to writing because I realized that’s not my passion and writing is. I realized that experience taught me so much, and one of those things was that I didn’t know going into science that you have to write thorough reports on you they find. I feel like there should be more accommodation for people in that realm of academia, as well as for people involved in the English department.”

Acevedo is hoping that A Reason to Write will be able to change how we perceive college writing and understand that there are many more facets to writing, and that there is something out there for everyone.

“People can really learn a lot about themselves because when you join a club, you’re not just going to fulfill some kind of requirement like you do in your classes. But why go to a club? A lot of people learn more about themselves than you would in a classroom because it’s completely voluntary. You don’t have to go to a club. That alone will tell you what you’re really interested in.”

A Reason to Write will be meeting on Tuesdays from 2:30pm to 4:20pm next semester in building 2S room 219. All are welcome to join, no matter the major.