Many imagine the writer as a figure hunched over a notepad in an isolated room, not emerging until they’ve completed their magnum opus. Yet this image is rapidly losing its relevance. In reviving the Oberlin Community of Writers, College fourth-year Riley Finn challenges the idea that writing is a solitary art and proposes collaborative alternatives.
OCoW has been around for many years, but it has not always been active. In spring 2019, Rowan Lepore, OC ’21, revived the club, and Senior Lecturer of Creative Writing Tom Hopkins signed on as the advisor. However, OCoW fell dormant again just a few years later. Hoping to revitalize it, Finn reached out to the previous president, but to no avail. So, she emailed the treasurer and got them to write her name in as president.
“In reviving OCoW, my idea wasn’t that it needs to be the biggest organization on campus or it needs to be something really intense or complicated,” she said. “I just wanted there to be a place that people come consistently to write. I think a big struggle at Oberlin is that people want to be writers, but they’re not writing consistently.”
OCoW meets once a week to sit down and write for an hour. Afterward, members have the option to submit their work to a form and receive feedback.
“The great thing about OCoW is that it makes you reckon with where you are as a writer, because you have to do it consistently,” Finn said. “I think that has really helped me to humble myself a little bit and be able to connect to other people more.”
OCoW functions beyond just as a writing workshop. So far, Finn has hosted two talks. On Aug. 29, she hosted a Career Paths in Writing Q&A with Hopkins and Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Ghassan Abou-Zeineddine. The event was so well-attended that they ran out of chairs and many students had to sit on the floor.
“The enthusiasm for that event helped spark the success of OCoW in the current year,” Hopkins said. “I think that made it clear that there was interest and enthusiasm for the group and for regular weekly OCoW meetings.”
Last Friday, Finn hosted the Q&A “What is Literary Journalism?” with Senior Lecturer of Writing and Communication Hal Sundt.
“Before I took a class with Professor Sundt, I didn’t think that I would ever like nonfiction,” Finn said. “I think a lot of the creative writers at Oberlin are limited by having only done fiction or poetry. I wanted to introduce them to literary journalism and Professor Sundt, both because he’s very inspiring but also because I think a lot of the writers here could find inspiration and a path forward through literary journalism.”
Students and Oberlin community members asked questions related to literary journalism and the creative approach to nonfiction, but also for general life advice. College third-year Zoe Jagiela was one of many who attended the event. She is not a member of OCoW, but found the event advertised in an email and decided it was a good opportunity to engage socially in the writing world.
“[Sundt] knew what he was talking about, and he was passionate and he was honest,” she said. “I think that that’s what we’re all looking for, especially people who might be in a similar situation as me — in their third or fourth year thinking, ‘what’s next?’”
Sundt works with a variety of friends, family, and editors to enhance his writing but still expressed wanting to do a better job of finding a community of writers to work with.
“The word ‘community’ can get thrown around a lot, but it really means something with writing,” Sundt said. “It can otherwise feel so isolating … Writing is so, so hard, but if other people are doing it, it feels like you’re all in solidarity.”
Although OCoW is not the only space for Oberlin writers, its revival is an important reminder of the value of community.
