Finding safety in vulnerability — the USU Bull Pen
Writing is all about vulnerability according to USU junior Amrutha Obulasetty.
“It gives you opportunities to be yourself in ways that you normally can’t be in other spaces,” she said.
Obulasetty, the president of USU’s creative writing club, the Bull Pen, strives to create a safe place for USU students to be vulnerable to share what can only be said in writing.
While the club attracts creative writing majors and those serious about their work, many of the members write as a hobby.
“We also attract a lot of engineering students that obviously don’t get that kind of interaction in their classes,” said Jay Paine, the club’s vice president. “They’re not taking the creative writing workshops and classes, so the Bull Pen is their space to do that.”
A common misconception is that creative writing encompasses a small facet of writing. In reality, creative writing includes people specializing in nonfiction or fantasy or sci-fi or poetry, among others.
“There’s so many niches and genres that people write about,” said Obulasetty.
The club brings together not only people of different majors but also writers focused on a variety of genres.
“The Bull Pen really offers a space for a diverse group of writers to come together and meet other people,” Paine said.
Obulasetty described the club’s dynamic as tight-knit.
“We’re like family,” she said. “We like banter a lot and we bicker and everybody’s just really nice to each other and we tease each other and it’s just all in good fun.”
The club meets once a week and holds a variety of events ranging from writing workshops to guest speakers.
During workshops, students submit two pages of their own writing to be reviewed by other members of the club. Everyone provides comments on each other’s work, and the club gets together to discuss what each person did well and how they could improve.
Students have the opportunity to meet other students with similar interests. Beyond a universal passion for creative writing, members also have the opportunity to meet students with similar genre specialties.
“It’s really just a space to connect and network with other writers,” Paine said.
The club has everyone from authors to former students come in and give presentations on writing techniques among other topics.
“For example, our last guest speaker that we had was Michael Souder,” Paine said. “He’s a poet and he told us a little bit about the volta, which is like a turn at the end of the poem, or anything that you write in general.”
In addition to workshops and guest speakers, the club also hosts a slam poetry team. The slam poetry team gathers writers in the Bull Pen club to prepare and practice slam poems, which are performed at competitions.
“Next week on Thursday we have the slam poetry team presenting at Helicon West,” Obulasetty said.
Helicon West is a featured reader and open mic series where local, regional and national authors have an opportunity to share their work, whether that be poetry or short stories. At this event, members of the Bull Pen club will be sharing their poetry with the community.
Paine encourages students interested in creative writing to come to one of the club’s meetings. The club meets every Monday from 3:30-4:20 p.m. at the Ray B. West Building in Room 14.
“Just show up to the meeting and we’ll all have a great time,” Paine said.
The club is open to new people and encourages a safe space for writers of all backgrounds.
“If you’re a writer, or you’re looking to learn how to write, or you just want to creative write or you don’t know what creative writing is and you want to learn more,” Obulasetty said. “I think that the Bull Pen is a good space for that.”
Graphic by Keith Wilson