Students take on Writer’s Day

Writer’s day is a day for student writers to read aloud their works and show off what they got. On December 1, writers Olivia Reiff, freshman, Claire Enk, sophomore, Olivia Grenier, sophomore, Ria Talukder, sophomore, and Delaney Heisterkamp, will take the stage in the PAC  to recite their prose piece to LZ students and staff. 

Q: What style of writing do you like the most?
Grenier: I do romance. I think it’s the most relatable topic to high schoolers and I think if I were to pick up a piece of writing, it would be romance because I feel that whenever I read romance, I automatically get a feel for the characters and their personalities rather waiting for details to show up halfway through an action-based story.

Q: What are your thoughts on Writer’s Day?
Grenier: I think it’s a really good idea and opportunity, especially for those that are more on the shy side, like me, with sharing their pieces. No one has really heard my pieces apart from my family and friends because I consider them pretty personal. For me to see a ton of people watching me present my piece is going to be really intimidating but I feel like it’s going to be a great outlet to share my work.
Enk: I’m kind of nervous about that, but I’m excited because I’m on speech and acting so I kind of do that a lot. But this is different because it’s in front of the school.
Reiff: I’ve been nominated for young authors a couple times but I’ve never actually be the one who gets to read their excerpt, so I wanted to give people a chance to read my style how I do it. Multiple teachers have told me they can hear my voice clearly in the writing. I want other people to see my work and what I can do.
Heisterkamp: I think it’s an awesome idea and when I heard about it I thought it was so cool to promote creative writing in high school. Obviously there’s a Lit Mag but this is an awesome way to celebrate writing and get creative writers involved with things that can happen in college like meeting professors and seeing panels about writing.
Talukder: I think it’s awesome because I feel like there are a lot of high schoolers who write and it’s nice to have an event where writers are celebrated.  I mean we have like the lit mag and stuff but I feel like having an event like Writer’s Day encourages people to participate in writing.

Q: Why did you decide to share your writing at Writer’s Day?
Grenier: I’ve been submitting my work to a lot of contests and I’m taking a public speaking class during second semester so I just decided to start speaking out more because so many people can read a piece themselves and have take away their own perception of it, but when the author reads it, I feel like the message is better portrayed and delivered to the audience rather than reading it on their own. The author can say a sentence differently than the reader, who may not understand what the sentence really means. If I were to read my own writing to people, I think it would have more of an impact because they would know how the piece is intended to be read and understood.

Q:When did you start writing?
Enk: I wrote all through elementary school but I got serious about it in the seventh grade. I started this other book about orphans, too. I started it in the summer before eighth grade and and I’ve been adding new chapters, editing it, or developing characters. I kind of do this thing where if I’m writing this book, I’ll create almost like, a reader copy, and I’ll send it to different  authors to read and see if they have feedback. I’ve gotten lots of emails back from other authors like Wendy Mass, Anthony Doeher and it’s pretty awesome because they give me tips about writing.
Reiff: Third grade. I really liked reading and drawing, and we were in this writing unit. We picked out of a hat, a character and a situation, and then started writing. After that, I really liked it. I write a lot, pretty much every free chance I get, poem or story.