The advisor for the literary club, Thomas Snarsky. Photo by Juliana Luong
The Literary Club is a group of students who are “creative writers, . . . photographers or even visual artists” who think about taking their work and publishing it. The Literary Society creates a magazine every year to showcase student art and writing that are from art classes and some work is done from interests.
The Literary Society is also one of the oldest in the entire country, second oldest in America, and longest run literary magazine in the U.S. since the 1800s.
When the club meets its “editorial staff” they would work with each other and make decisions about what the order will be for all the work, themes, and figuring out ways to get more submissions.
They met on Thursdays after school with Thomas Snarsky, the club advisor, in room B230. There would normally have been other meetings closer to planning the Oracle once the release date was set.
Madison Chiesa was introduced to the Literary Society during her freshman year on the intercom and was in it for half her freshman year and her whole sophomore year. She had been a big fan of writing and her creativity drew her to join the club that same day.
Chiesa is responsible for poetry, looking over different work and deciding whether or not each piece fits with The Oracle’s theme. She also submits her writing of short stories and poems. “[Her] favorite part of being in Literary Society is reading everyone’s work. Every poem, short story, art piece, etc has a story behind it. It makes [her] feel great just to be able to see everyone’s story,” she states.
Also talking to Rodge-Neima Joseph, a short story editor for the club, said how there are different editors for different work such as; artwork, poems, short stories, etc. Joseph has been in the club for one year. She thinks the best part of the club is that it showcases students’ work which is very important, considering that if you write a really good essay or short story the only person that sees it is usually a teacher. Submitting work into The Oracle is a good opportunity for more people to read your work without worrying about getting graded like an assignment.
As for any advice for people wanting to join or submit their work, “Just do it! We are an amazing club filled with kind-hearted, accepting people. Writing is all about passion and a lot of the time passion can be dark and pretty deep. Because we view writings like this all the time and are surrounded by literature we do not judge anyone for their darkness but instead encourage them to write about it.”
