A “strong smell” and an hour to write, what would you come up with?
On Friday, Sept. 4, the University of Tulsa’s Reading and Writing club, acronymized as RAW, held its second weekly meeting in Chapman Hall. The organization provides a space for students interested in literature, writing or simply the company of people who like both. With there being no required prerequisite or major, Reading and Writing meet every week on Friday for anyone interested.
I arrived about 10 or 20 minutes before the meeting officially started. Seeing that there was someone already there, I ended up just talking with him as others slowly came in and found their seats. He was not a part of the club’s executive committee like myself, just someone who came to the first meeting and wanted to show up early this week. Despite how trivial of a detail this may seem, it really set the tone of the rest of the meeting for me. Very casual, laid-back and approachable, RAW does a great job at setting up an informal environment where people can feel comfortable creating and sharing their ideas.
Marcus Coleman, a junior triple-major, is one of the organization’s co-presidents. He stated that RAW “is meant to do what books have always done for readers and writers alike: take us out of our day-to-day lives and give us a chance to unwind and come up with and hear some great stories.” That ease extended to how the meeting was run. When Marcus came into the room and saw all of us discussing with each other, instead of cutting in to start the meeting, he let the discussion run for a while before sharing the prompts we were supposed to write with. Whatever the group wrote had to focus on “a strong smell,” and we were given the rest of the hour to type up our ideas. Although I struggled at first with the prompt, I was able to eventually cobble together a rough story. My writing centered on a student at the fictional University of Sapulpa discovering that her professor has been using the sweat of students for his “groundbreaking” microbiology research. Other writers wrote things such as a story about a soldier going insane from the stench of dead comrades, another concentrated on an entrancing perfume store and yet another had a rotting house as its center.
Once the timer was up, some of us began to share what we had written, while others just listened. The space’s relaxed atmosphere was not putting pressure on anybody to share if they did not want to, and other students felt it as well. Zakarea Yoosuf, a first year Ph.D. student, said “Everybody was very chill, everyone was very conversational. It was a light environment, but you could still get into the nitty-gritty of literature.” He went on to say, “I liked that you can have a lot of intellectually deep conversation without it being so formalized.” That informality is something the club plans on keeping as it grows, because RAW has more than just prompt writing on its calendar for this semester. According to Coleman, the club plans on doing bookmark making, a Halloween party, skit writing and many other events for students that are interested.
Although some may feel intimidated by the prospect of sharing their writing, nothing about RAW demands it. The atmosphere created by the club makes people feel open to either sharing or just listening to the conversation. The Reading and Writing club meets every Friday at 3:30 p.m. in Chapman 123 for those interested.
