On the first day of CW, I was scared and sitting in my seat when suddenly Heather was all like “Dance party everybody!” and I thought “oh I’m probably gonna die.” Then we wrote to a prompt and some people read theirs and I was like “also I really don’t even hold a candle to these people wow.” And during the first marking period, with all the due dates buzzing around in my head, I was like “yeah there’s no way I’m actually going to do well in CW but might as well enjoy it while it lasts” but guess what? Guess what everybody? Here I am haha and I am thriving!

I mean yeah of course CW is stressful at times, but at the same time Heather is always understanding and sympathetic to everyone’s needs and I always feel totally supported. So am I thriving in life? No, definitely not. But I do feel like I’m beginning to get into the rhythm of things in CW (aside from the extremely rare slip up).

I also just really like Creative Writing, and here is a poem, a haiku actually, I wrote to express that:

Creative Writing never fails to amaze

I really really like it a lot

my computer’s had no backup for 31 days

I would’ve done it yesterday

but then I forgot

Is it technically a haiku? No

Should it be a haiku, seeing as I’m in a department for writing?

Yes, definitely, but look, I’m an iconoclast.

Additionally, Heather works really hard to give us writers exposure to lots of different arts, whether its having a visual artist come talk to us in class, or having us go to cine club and write film reflections (the movies there are pretty great, so it’s not really a chore and more of a Fun Thing To Do, I highly recommend it). Because of that, as well as all the discussions we have about different texts in class, I’ve found myself growing a lot as a writer, and now I can’t read my old work without having a very painful stroke and wanting to burn my entire computer. But it’s ok because my newer work is a lot less bad, as you can see with my poem up top.

For real though, I absolutely love CW, and everything I’ve learned from it, and I’m always excited to go (especially now because it’s almost the playwriting unit!), and without Creative Writing I would probably be a lot less happy and a lot stupider.

–Sofi Orkin Class of 2022