Juniors Addison Laird and Maleigh Crespo started a new student organization that encourages creativity in all forms after feeling Loyola lacked such.
The Writing Wall came to Loyola last semester as an official student organization and, unlike the name, this club is for more than just writers. In their short time at Loyola, they’ve had screenplays read, tarot card readings, and song performances.
Crespo said the creation of this club came after feeling as though there weren’t any places that fit her needs on campus.
“I felt like here, I needed something that was no stress, no pressure, you just come and share a piece of yourself with someone else,” she said.
This feeling, Crespo said, was one she worried wouldn’t be what many others felt a need for or would be interested in.
“I was honestly terrified to do it because I thought it wouldn’t be received well by the community,” Crespo said.
Despite Crespo’s fear, members Cason Cottrell and Tanesha Taylor spoke highly of the organization, and its availability to students on campus.
“I’m always overwhelmed when it comes to going to events and having to like speak and stuff like that so the writing wall, I never really spoke but like it was comforting to know that I didn’t even sign up. I could just show up and speak and people would listen,” Taylor said.
Cottrell, a popular and commercial music junior, joined the writing wall on a whim and immediately fell in love with the environment that had been set within the club.
“Creativity is this crazy art form that’s so hard to understand and so to be with a group of people who are also working to understand it themselves creates an awesome safe space where we can all share and give feedback and be honest but also kind,” she said.
Cottrell said the organization helped her in more ways than just being that safe place.
“I’m a songwriter so I was feeling really blocked creatively and it felt like a very awesome way to be around other creatives and just see what it would be like to create in a group and share with others,” she said.
Crespo said this club was for something bigger than just herself, but it is also for anyone who feels they could benefit from this in any way.
“It was for the person who, in their freshman year, was crying themselves to sleep every night, didn’t know who they were, didn’t know what they wanted to do. It was for that person and those people who needed that community,” she said.
To join the club, you only need one thing, according to Crespo and Taylor, and that is to be yourself. The Writing Wall is accepting of anyone and anything, they both said.
“Come completely as you are. And I’m saying that so honestly. Come exactly as you are. You don’t have to prepare anything. You can just sit the first time, and if you have something to say mid meeting, say it,” Taylor said.
