Eryka Jones

Junior Sarah Arora practices her piece that she will present during Writers Week.

Every year there is Writers Week, a time for students who have a passion for writing short stories, music or poetry. As Writers Week rolls in for its fifth year at LHS, it gives student writers a chance to step into the spotlight and share their work. This year, Writers Week is from Monday, April 6 until Thursday, April 9 and will include a variety of students and professionals who wish to inspire students to take up writing, or just to give them a new perspective on it.

This year, Writers Week has had a drastic increase in student writers who will present their pieces to the school, which will result in “a good mix of performers every day,” according to junior Sarah Arora, a three-year participant in Writers Week.

Writers Week allows students to express themselves and show the school the hard work and dedication it took to make the masterpieces that they present. Mrs. Mary Kate Schoenbeck, a coordinator of Writers Week, corroborates this: “We know, at times, who the best athletes in the school are. We know who the best theatre people are in school. We know who gets the high score on the ACT. But now, after Writers Week, we notice the best writers in the school who are the poets, who are the storytellers, who are the songwriters.”

In addition, Mrs. Schoenbeck believes that Writers Week allows students to “see that writing is not just writing a thesis statement. Writing is all different types of professions. It can look many different ways. It’s something that is a part of many professions which students may not realize.”

Mr. Craig Schmidt, another committee member for Writers Week, said: “I want to say, pay attention to everything and everybody,” when he was asked who the audience should be looking forward to. “It’s interesting because we don’t know who’s going to be awesome. And it actually can change from period to period.”

Mr. Schmidt said that the purpose of Writers Week is “to get the chance to acknowledge the student writers, and [try] to create more of a culture where that kind of stuff is [something that] people look up to.”

Furthermore, the guest speakers allow the student body to see the wide variety of jobs that incorporate writing. The guest speaker list this year includes poets, journalists, and singer-songwriters. The Writers Week committee reaches out to people they would like to come speak; they even offer to pay for travel costs.

Some professional writers to watch out for at Writers Week this year are poets Mary Fons, who will perform April 6, and Aja Monet, who will perform the 7th. According to Mr. Schmidt and Mrs. Schoenbeck, a few of the students who have been extremely active in Writers Week are Isaac Shur, Alexis Kristoffersen, and Emmalee Berger; on the list of active participants were two of Drops of Ink’s own staff members, David Black and Hannah Boufford.

For updates on what to expect each day, students can follow @LHSWritersWeek on Twitter. “Follow us now so we can get you up and ready before Writers Week comes and try to come as much as possible,” suggested Mrs. Schoenbeck.

Students will be able to use the #LHSWritersWeek hashtag on Twitter to tweet about what they listened to. “We’ll hopefully give them a minute,” Schmidt said, “[…] to share your experience, like positive reviews.”