Two new clubs at Wittenberg have formed around either a common love for lunch or a passion for creative writing.
Both Witt Lunch Club and Fact in Fiction started holding regular meetings at the beginning of the 2013 school year.
Witt Lunch Club meets every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 12:30 p.m. on the steps in Barbara Deer Kuss Science Center, although the members are trying to add another meeting time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fact in Fiction meets every Sunday in Hollenbeck 129 from 3-5 p.m.
The lunch club formed because of several students wanting to promote other options besides the CDR, such as the meal swap option in Barbara Deer Kuss Science Center.
“Lunch club kind of created itself,” said Clint Rogers, a member of the club.
“Fact in Fiction,” on the other hand, is the “brain child” of Hannah Hunt, a student who transferred at the end of last year. Hunt and Meaghan Summers, vice president, were involved in a similar club in their hometown.
The club then started to take shape as three out of the four executives of the club, Brooke Brauer, Jeffrey Hurley, and Keri Heath, bonded over the idea in their creative writing class.
Each club said that it is important to talk with others who share a common interest—whether that is talking about one another’s day over a meal or workshopping one another’s papers.
Fact in Fiction meetings start with conversations about each member’s week and then transition into an hour of writing on a specific prompt (usually fiction related). Conversations about each member’s paper follow the hour long writing period.
The members, about six in all, also bring in work from previous meetings and their own writing to the meetings for constructive criticism.
“Since writing is such a solitary activity, it is always helpful to be around other writers. Also, it is neat to hear what others have written” said Heath.
Witt Lunch Club also focuses on conversation and getting to know one another as the members begin each meeting by talking about one another’s day.
To get the conversation going, members have even had a “show and tell,” to represent each member’s personality; but mostly the meetings start with a game of “high/low” in which members tell one another about the highlights and lowlights of their day.
“Lunch club is my highlight of the day,” said member Martha Kenyon during last Wednesday’s high/low game.
Members of lunch club also said that they are not looking to become an official Wittenberg-backed club, although it was considered. The members are looking to keep the club in more of a casual setting.
However, the club does have an unofficial advisor, Annetta Britain, an employee at Simply to Go, the meal swap station in the science center. The club also has a constitution in which the first rule is: “Attendance is mandatory…if you can make it.”
Both clubs also encourage Wittenberg students to join whether it be for the love of lunch, or for the interest in improving one’s writing.
“We are a really open group of writers who are interested in hearing other’s writing, sharing our own writing and becoming betters writers through each other,” said Heath.
