GOING IT ALONE
On the Office of Student Life website, there are over 15 writing-related groups, and these are only the officially recognized ones; that number does not include organizations like The Crimson that sustain themselves independently from the College. But even with the plethora of ways to get involved in writing with other students, there are those who choose to approach creative writing in a more individual setting.
“I personally never enjoyed creative writing classes,” Riley K. Carney ’15 says. “I like getting feedback when [I’m] ready for it.” Starting at age 15, Carney has published five books in her fantasy series.
For that reason, Carney decided not to add creative writing courses to her academic schedule, preferring to take her own time to produce stories. She is working on her next novel, a departure from her usual work that she describes as “a political thriller with a hint of mystical noir.” Even though she is constantly creating fiction, Carney chose to study government at Harvard, and she says she plans to write a thesis.
“You have to find a daily balance,” she says. “If I want to write, I have to write.” She blocks out mornings to work on fiction and will produce anywhere from 300 words to five pages in one day. This time commitment is something that other student writers find challenging. Hitzig says that dividing her time between academics and her work at the Advocate is not always easy.
For some, writing is a very individual craft—even after countless edits and critiques, the greatest sense of achievement might arise from quietly perfecting a poem or successfully helping a character to reach her goal. Others find the workshop environment necessary to jumpstart the creative process. “I don’t think I’d be able to motivate myself to write without a class,” Robinson says.
Whether writing is a social or solitary pursuit, Harvard provides environments primed for both dispositions in the hopes that the next Thoreau, Cummings, or Updike will emerge from its halls.
—Staff writer Virginia R. Marshall can be reached at virginia.marshall@thecrimson.com.
This article has been revised to reflect the following corrections:
CORRECTION: September 24
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Dennis A. Sun '15 applied to creative writing workshops four semesters in a row and was told by the English Department to improve his writing; Sun applied two semesters in a row and read on the English Department's website that he should improve. The article also incorrectly named Sun's group as the Harvard Writers' Workshop, not the Harvard College Writers' Workshop.