The first piece was about video games and the second basketball fandom. The last two were about lawn signs and ceramic tiles. In between: everything from the tourist experience to sewer treatment. On Thursday, Oct. 17 at 7 p.m., 12 fellows from the Whipple Writing Fellowship gathered to read from their narrative nonfiction pieces to a crowd of family and friends in the MLK room. The fellowship and the evening presentation provided a space and community for the fellows to share their passions alongside other motivated writers.
The evening began with an introduction by the program director and Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator Jen Martin, who described the origins of the fellowship and gave a brief overview of the program. English teachers Emma Siver and Evan Mousseau continued the introduction before introducing the fellows one by one as they shared excerpts.
Siver said the fellowship program aims to get rising juniors and seniors engaged in narrative nonfiction.
“They offer a space in which kids can take on a passion or a task of their own and utilize these summer research data collection [opportunities] and overall experience and community to go ahead and put forth a long-form piece of writing of about 15 pages,” Siver said.
The pieces ranged in topic from an existential interpretation of Mario to a reflection of the commercialization of soccer. Senior and fellow Graham Martin-Wilson said the resources of the fellowship allowed him to pursue his writing interest in a different way from a standard English class.
“I love to write everything: nonfiction, fiction, creative stuff,” Martin-Wilson said. “This was one of those rare things in life where it’s making me happy and it’s something productive, and I’m getting paid.”
Senior and fellow Devin Sullivan said the shared enthusiasm of the fellows led to a special working space for the writers.
“I’ve never been in an environment with this many people who are equally passionate because you couldn’t really be in the program without wanting to be there,” Sullivan said. “And so that made it a really constructive environment.”
Siver said the fellowship has given her the rewarding experience of seeing the ability of the fellows, some of which were her own students during the year, to pursue topics of their own choosing.
“It’s just an overall positive experience that takes us outside of the four walls of the school year, that culminates in just seeing the strength that our writers have,” Silver said. “It’s just a privilege to see students not only be able to write something but then share it out with a larger audience.”
Martin-Wilson said the evening provided a fitting end to the summer work.
“This feels like a night that everybody here really worked up to,” Martin-Wilson said. “It’s small, it’s personal. It really feels great to be here.”
