It’s no secret that Eastern University has a wide variety of clubs and activities for students, making it nearly impossible to stay up to date with all of them, and Inklings is a club that may have slipped under the radar for the majority of Eastern students.
Inklings meetings take place biweekly on Thursdays in HHC22 from 8pm to 9pm. During this time, club members work on writing new poems and short stories based off of writing prompts and give each other constructive feedback on pieces they’ve already written. In the fall semester, there’s more of a focus on creating and writing new pieces, while in the spring semester, the focus shifts more to revising those pieces and making them the best they can possibly be through group discussions.
“The best part of Inklings is getting to be a part of a community of writers invested in helping each other, and that community is what drives the meetings and encourages people to share the poems and stories they’ve worked hard on” said Ruby Baker, the Editor-in-Chief of Inklings.
Meetings are not the only place that students can share their creative work with others. They can also decide to submit their pieces to the Inklings literary magazine.
“The mission of Inklings is to showcase the creativity of Eastern University’s campus in the forms of photography, writing, and art, and to accurately represent the student body through them,” said Baker.
The magazine is student-run, so Inklings members get a say in what content goes into the final publication at the end of the spring semester. Once students submit their artwork or writing to the magazine by emailing it to inklings@eastern.edu, all of the submissions are evaluated blindly, meaning that the names of the authors, poets, and artists aren’t known to the students looking through them. This ensures that the pieces are taken into consideration for craftsmanship alone.
To anyone unfamiliar with submitting to literary magazines, this information can sound intimidating, but there’s no need to worry.
“Good writing comes in lots of different forms,” Baker said. “It’s not just reserved for English majors. We want something that’s going to hit us in the gut. If your writing makes someone feel something, submit it!”
Baker also mentioned the benefits of becoming a part of the Inklings community.
“Come to meetings and ask us questions because we edit and workshop with other writers, and you get a feel for the style of our editors. We are a reflection of who we read and who we write like.” Baker said.
While Inklings publishes a print edition of the magazine towards the end of the spring semester, this past year, the magazine has also started to publish students’ work online. On inklingslitmag.weebly.com, readers can find the poems, stories, and artwork from the 2017/2018 issue, as well as a brand new blog section, which is updated frequently and gives more in-depth insights into what’s happening at Inklings meetings and in the world of art and literature.
Even with the recent changes to the publication, there’s still room for more changes in the future.
“Eventually, we’d like to expand Inklings to have a print publication that’s just for the work of Eastern students and alumni, and an online publication that has submissions from undergraduate students from across the U.S.” Ruby said. “We’d also like to bring in speakers that are writers for workshops at our meetings.”
Though these are long-term goals for the club, both the Inklings meetings and the Inklings literary magazine have great things in store for them this year.
Another key component of Inklings is the amount of events held for students to improve their writing, share their work, and get to know each other better. Throughout the year, the club hosts poetry readings for students to share poems they’ve been working on or poems that they enjoy reading and inspire them, as well as a write-in during the fall semester, in which students and faculty alike are welcome to come and work on their writing projects for as long as they’d like while enjoying the company of other writers.
Dates for this year’s write-in and readings have yet to be announced, so keep your eyes and ears open for any announcements about these events!
If you’re interested in being a part of Inklings or if you have any questions regarding the club or the publication, you can contact the editors by sending an email to inklings@eastern.edu.