Author: SOTA Creative Writing

We are now in playwriting class. At the start of the class, we were given homework which consisted of eavesdropping on people around us, whether it be on the way home from school or to a job. Many junior writers struggle to make dialogue feel realistic, the exercise was to help us be able to…

How many people can say they’ve written a play, or been in an intensive class taught by a playwright from New York? I’m sure there are some people out there, but not the majority of the population. A couple of months ago, I couldn’t either. In Creative Writing, we have a playwriting unit every spring,…

When I first learned about the senior thesis project all the way back in my freshman year, I was terrified. I couldn’t fathom the scale of the project, that every senior in the department would have to showcase their mastery of writing by producing a book’s worth of work. It was too much for me…

A creative voice is something especially unique. It’s why not everyone is in Creative Writing, and it’s how we flaunt our writerly blood over the creatures in Theater, among others. Everyone has their style; just within the Sophomore class, we have a writer who scribes poetry based off of ever-complex familial connection, a writer who…

SOTA has an infestation. I came to this conclusion as I was trying to pay attention in class. Everyone knows it’s important to listen to your teachers and follow directions (Duh). In creative writing, it is instilled in us both to always put forth one-thousand percent of effort, and also, that we are constantly thinking…

When I was little, I would watch Little Miss Sunshine on repeat. Once a week for a year. This week I watched my own play performed at least twenty times. But the difference is, Little Miss Sunshine never got old and I never doubted if it was a good movie or not. We call ourselves…

Walking into the Creative Writing room for the first time, not the first day of school, but the very very first time, during the tour of the SOTA campus while I was in eighth grade was a truly unique experience. The first thing I noticed: the strange formation of tables. A big circle of tables,…

Growing up, I’ve always thought of myself as a fiction writer, a storyteller. But one semester in Creative Writing shifted my perspective. We study three primary units in CW: Poetry, Fiction, and Playwriting. As a freshman, I’ve only experienced one poetry unit and half of a fiction unit. We started the year off with poetry,…

The door to the creative writing deck winks at me like a familiar friend, beckoning my body to leap into the weather that cloaks us in comfort and magic. I wait all day to feel the fog nuzzle my shoulders, or to free my face to the sun rays. Heather always brags about our special…

Every semester in CW, we are required to attend a minimum of two Art Saturdays to meet department requirements. As the obligation went, and as my curiosity was piqued, I was ready for my weekend homework. After arriving at Fort Mason and awaiting the arrival of those distinctive and familiar silhouettes, we entered a spacious,…