The creative writing department has gone through many changes this year. After two artists-in-residence, a class merging, and a very busy year for English and communications teacher Brittany Rigdon, the class still managed to successfully publish their annual anthology, a collective work of selective pieces that each writer has done throughout the year. This year’s theme was “Cliché,” and copies of the publication have been made available to purchase as of May 26.

“It gives us a common goal for the end of the year and a place to showcase our talents as the creative writing class,” communications alumna Tiffany Abreu said. “Of course, we also submit to ‘Seeds,’ but the anthology is special because it’s only for our class. It’s really the only time the creative writing class has their own exclusive performance.”

Both seniors and juniors came together to work on “Cliché.” Many nights were spent by students and Ms. Rigdon editing and laying out the book after school. Ms. Rigdon was eventually aided by artist-in-residence Brittany Ackerman, but she spent half of the year single-handedly managing the senior’s and junior’s work.

“We had a lot of maybes for artists-in-residence, but Ms. Rigdon was an amazing teacher and [Ms. Ackerman,] although very tiny, was a huge influence on my writing this year,” communications junior and 2016-17 anthology editor-in-chief and Kayla Kirshenbaum said. “[Publishing an anthology] is really hard because the editing takes a long time and the deadlines get thrown around [due to] school events. Though, I’m looking forward to [helping] the new juniors next year with their writing, especially with all I’ve learned this year from [Ms. Ackerman and Ms. Rigdon.]”

Despite the stressful times creative writing students endured, they are extremely pleased with the results of “Cliché.” Each piece started in late August, and many were still being edited and worked on by their authors during the final weeks leading up to publishing.

“When book planning begins, the class is divided into teams that take care of different parts of the book [such as] advertising, layout, and editing. Each piece goes through one round of editing with their respective editor type, then another round with the teachers,” Abreu said. “The priority is always in the work you’re publishing first. Is it good? Has it been edited well? One thing creative writing classes are good at is critiquing others, so by the time the layout phase came around, everyone’s work was near perfection. The hardest part of publishing is making something worth publishing.”

The anthology will be on sale for the rest of the year. Creative writing juniors are carrying around copies of the book for $10, and the anthology will also be available on Amazon over the summer.

“People should buy the anthology for a lot of reasons, mainly because it’s good writing. There is a lot of talent in these two classes and the students don’t get much of an opportunity to showcase that,” Ms. Rigdon said. “It’s nice for students from other majors to support their peers who are in these classes, and [to] get a taste of what it is they do in here.”

This year, the class became extremely close by being involved in one another’s stories and classroom discussions. As a member of the Class of 2016, Abreu looks back at her time in the creative writing department fondly.

“[I’m going to miss] the community that we created. For some of us, writing is an outlet for the chaos of our daily lives. The class was a safe and open environment where your writing could be judged for its quality, not its content,” Abreu said. “Students learn things about each other that would never come up in polite conversation, but it’s trusted to never leave the classroom. There’s a strong sense of unity there. It is ‘cliché,’ but we’re a family.”