In honor of National Writing Day, Threshold and Skiffy (Science Fiction Fantasy Writers) hosted a Fun Writing Day social to encourage people to submit to the literary magazine, Threshold, as well as set aside time to write. Participants could choose from one of the numerous prompts spread across the front board, write to a prompt of their own, or author a piece along the theme “Origins” for Threshold’s Shadwell writing competition. 

“It was a double [eighth period] block event where we brought in food, snacks, and made it a fun event, and then the room was just filled with prompt ideas,” senior Jack McLaughlan said. “The room was just full of people writing for these different prompts, talking with each other, there was lot of promotion for Shadwell, which is a writing competition that happens through November.”

According to Threshold sponsor Josephine Porcelli, the Fun Writing Day event was the first to formally celebrate National Writing Day at Jefferson.

“As far as I know, there hasn’t been anything in the past,” Porcelli said. “I had not thought about it before, and it was mentioned to me a couple weeks prior by Ms. Glover.  I talked to some of the officers and Threshold about getting some sort of joint event with Skiffy and some other writers to just meet together and write.”

Over 40 people attended the free writing event on Oct. 20 including freshman Erin Li. Li recalls enjoying the refreshments and writing practice that the event afforded, even signing up for Skiffy afterward following her participation in Fun Writing Day.

“Mostly, I went there because of the food, and I wasn’t planning on writing stuff, but my friend found a topic for us to write about,” Li said. “I was able to write a story, and I haven’t been able to do that since 7th grade.”

Overall, the eighth period event was able to touch on many of the goals that the officers had in mind. Fun Writing Day inspired participants to write for Shadwell, introduced more writers to two of the school’s largest creative writing clubs, and highlighted the finer points of each one of those clubs.

“I’m not sure how it did in terms of bringing people from either group, but it was definitely very successful in terms of bringing both clubs together to collaborate and make each club aware of each other and the different benefits of each one: Skiffy as an option for creativity, writing, being with a bunch of friends who are like-minded, and Threshold as an outlet for submitting writing and getting it out,” McLaughlan said.