FEATURE

Writing club helps WTMC students turn ideas into anthologies

The main motivation of the WTMC writing club is to give people a safe space to write. David Schwarzenberg | Wikimedia Commons

Lexi Stephens | Contributor

Washtenaw Technical Middle College (WTMC) is the high school program for WCC, which helps students prepare for college by taking college classes for free while they are still in high school. Along with allowing students to take college classes early, the program features a wide variety of clubs.

One of them is the WTMC writing club. When asked what made her want to start the writing club, Samantha Bekemeyer, the teacher advisor, said, “I was kind of grandfathered in when Ms. (Emily) Zdyrko left.

The main motivation of the club is to give people a safe space to write. There’s also not an expectation for everyone to show up every week and produce something.

Not having an expectation for club participants to show up every week and produce material is a great feature for a writing club to have because it can really show the attendees that this is a safe space for them to express themselves without there being a time limit.

At the end of the year, the club produces an anthology collection of work created by the students.

When asked about what the process for producing the final anthology looked like, Zoey Culp, the club president said, “There’s a lot of different aspects that go into producing the anthology. We have help with peer review, free writing days, voting for cover art and title ideas and, finally, getting the due date and getting all the work submitted, formatted and published.”

People who are interested in getting an anthology can pick one up from the WTMC office, located on the second floor of the TI building. They can also be found in the Bailey Library and are given out at the WTMC Welcome Day.