AMY SALISBURY
EDITOR -IN-CHIEF

Commons 206 buzzed with artistic energy Tuesday, April 12, as the Creative Writing Community and Workshop, CWCW, conducted an evening student reading.

The room filled with CSUSM students, friends, family and Palomar students eager to hear original poetry published in CWCW’s chapbook, “Community Soliloquies,” published several times throughout the semester.

“Our reading series harbors and encourages artistic expression, which is essential to any community, especially one such as ours that revolves around intellectual growth and discovery,” said James Jones, president of the CWCW. Literature and Writing faculty member Sandra Doller serves as adviser of the group.

Jones explained that student participation is not limited to those involved in the Literature and Writing department.

The CWCW has student workshops every one to two weeks where students can come with pieces of creative writing they are interested in workshopping. Some students attend to work on their MFA portfolios; others just enjoy a supportive creative environment.

‘The CWCW meetings help to hone my writing skills,” Reneé Le Vine said, a reading attendee and published poet in “Community Soliloquies.” “It’s a workshop and community of support,” she continued. “It’s the only one of its kind on campus.”

Students chosen for publication by the officers and editors of CWCW, which include Jessica Mulqueen, Taen Bounthapanya and Tiffany Hauswirth, receive an invitation to read their work. Although many incarnations of poetry make up the majority of work shared, there are also pieces of fiction throughout the chapbook.

Le Vine’s poem, entitled “Characters’ Elegy,” uniquely portrayed the lamentation that a fiction writer’s characters felt after her death. Other poetry, like Robyn Sembrera’s “Orange Blossoms :” and “Hum:” detailed the poet’s first-person account of experience, and “In-Between Season” by Navarina Wakefield posed the narrator as an orchid in seasonal limbo.

The positive presence of the CWCW on campus suggests that there is a strong sense of communal creative support that extends beyond the grounds of CSUSM.

Jones also encouraged all students to submit their original creative work to “Oh Cat,” CWCW’s last chapbook of the year.

To find out more information about the CWCW, email [email protected].

Photos courtesy of Taen Bounthapanya