Reading Out Loud

The Santa Fe University of Art and Design’s Student Writing Association sponsors two readings in the fall semester: one for returning students and one for new students. On Tuesday, Oct. 2714 freshmen and transfer students stood at the podium in the O’Shaughnessy Performance Space to share original writing with their teachers and peers. Although the week leading up to the reading was filled with rumors of returning students dressing in hoodies and sitting through the event in silence (CWL Department mythology has it that this happened at a new student reading a few years back), the O’Shaughnessy Space was full and the department’s new students read with confidence to a receptive audience. Over an intermission of coffee and cookies (baked from scratch by department co-chair Dana Levin), a few readers chatted with nervous energy about how nervous they were or the one word they had fumbled over, but the reading was characterized by Creative Writing C-Chair Matt Donovan’s proclamation after the applause for the last reader had died down: Great reading!

The following audiovisual piece features the voices of just a few of SFUAD’s new writers who took part: Wyatt Dowling, Melinda Frendenberger, Kyle Hertz, Dariam Mera, Malcolm Pierre and Ana Stina Rimel.