On Friday afternoons, most people spend their time going home or hanging out with friends, but for some people, they take delight in reading personal and publishable pieces written by other students. Many of these works could be prose, short stories, or poems, but all of it has a special place in the Literary Magazine.
Each year comes with different people and personalities, and the students who stay in the club for multiple years can grow mature in both their personality and in their writing style. With many students, and especially club advisor Ms. Lopez, to comment on and to critique people’s pieces, students are capable of writing what they want and feel better about their work as they continue through the years.
Ms. Lopez, an English teacher and sole advisor for the Literary Magazine Club, started running the club with two advisors. “The other person ran most of the sharing meetings while I focused on the yearly paper publication,” Lopez said.
Soon after teaching here, she realized how much she wanted to be surrounded by the atmosphere of writing for the magazine, so that’s why she became an advisor for the Magazine. “When I became the sole advisor a few years later, I found there was no better place to spend Friday afternoons.”
Some of the most talented writers join Lit, and they quickly incorporate new features into their writing, while building on their style just the same as before. During some activities in Lit, Ms. Lopez is commonly surprised about “The writers’ ability to learn about a concept (line breaks, rhyme schemes, etc.) and immediately apply them to their own creative content.” She describes that some of the students’ creative writing “takes the personal and makes it universal.”
Ms. Tomasini, who began working at East Islip High School this year, is a former member of the literary magazine. She was able to thoroughly explain what it was like as a member, and she was able to look back on her experiences. Generally, she explained that being a student in the literary magazine gave her a good group of people who all had a common interest in writing. Lit helped her grow into a better and more developed writer and person.
The principles of the Literary Magazine club haven’t changed much since then.
Nick DeSantis, a junior who is currently in the Literary Magazine Club, attended every meeting since his sophomore year. He always writes prose pieces, and very consistently, he sends them to the Google Classroom to allow everybody in Lit to comment on his writing. His prose pieces are full of complex words, and his imagery is always complete.
Because of Nick’s experiences of meeting new people and writing in the literary magazine, he decided that he can write something that he and his peers would be proud of. His goal as a member is to “provide a safe space for anyone who doesn’t have anywhere else to go and wants to share their creativity with a group with common interests.”
The Literary Magazine Club, as with many others in the East Islip School district, is always welcoming new students. While most believe that the Literary Magazine club is only for writers, people with varying skills in reading, writing and drawing can collaborate to publish the Literary Magazine at the end of the year.
As Ms. Lopez says, “It’s sometimes the club for people who don’t usually join clubs. Some people draw, some write music, some, who didn’t think they have much to offer, become the most important members for providing feedback.”