When junior Ariel Robinson goes even a few nights without writing in his journal, he is unable to concentrate in class.

“After this happened the first time, I realized that I needed to have an outlet, some way to get all these extra thoughts out of my head,” said Robinson. “I did that with journal writing. I read a lot. If you’re taking in a lot, you want to give out a lot so you don’t fill up with information.”

For Robinson, the school’s annually-published literary magazine, Refractions, was one of these outlets.  Last year, he published a short story titled “The Manuscript.”

Junior Sarah Fleming, Refractions editor-in-chief, agrees that creative writing is an important and interesting opportunity for students.

“In a lot of English classes, you don’t get a chance to do creative writing other than maybe one project a year,” said Fleming. “It’s much more interesting than just editing someone’s essay about Macbeth because you get to hear people’s personal artistic voices.”

Similarly, junior Dimitar Dimitrov, who published both a poem and an essay last year, said he likes the creative writing he has been assigned in classes more than essays that conform to a rubric.

“If it’s very open-ended, it’s fun because you get to create something completely new,” said Dimitrov. “You don’t really know where it will take you when you start. It’s like an adventure in a way.”

English teachers do not always assign many creative writing projects. English Curriculum Coordinator Mary Burchenal explained that the amount of creative writing varies from teacher to teacher.

According to English teacher Rob Primmer, one of the magazine’s advisers, Refractions is important because it fosters creativity.

“We don’t offer any sort of creative writing class to kids until senior year, so there’s a lot of underclassmen excitement about the potential to write creatively,” said Primmer. “Refractions in some ways helps promote that.”

Refractions holds themed contests periodically to engage writers. Robinson’s “The Manuscript” won last year’s holiday contest. He said that having a prompt from the magazine makes you less shy about sharing your work.

“If you write something that’s bad or you don’t like it, you can say, ‘Oh, it’s not me, it’s the prompt,’ ” said Robinson.

English teacher Peter Sedlak, the magazine’s other adviser, said that serious writers push the work they submit to the next level of writing because they know it will be published.

“If they’re really thinking about writing as a craft,” said Sedlak, “the next step toward being a writer is having readers.”

Aaron Sege can be contacted at [email protected].