Christyn Pettway
SUNY Plattsburgh’s Literature Club is an open space for students to share and read short stories with one another. According to the club’s president, Brianna Sierra, a sophomore majoring in communication studies and digital media production, the Literature Club is dedicated to encouraging students to explore their love of reading and writing. The club meets weekly on Thursdays at 5 p.m. to go over the short stories they agreed on the previous week.
This past week, the Literature Club went over “Premium Harmony” by Stephen King from The New Yorker. Sierra read the piece out loud to the club and after everyone gave their thoughts. This is how a normal meeting runs.
Every week there’s a short introduction to greet the club members and any new students who have joined the Zoom meeting that week. The Literature Club is open to any student who wants to check it out. After the introduction, is “the search.” This is where the club members decide what short story they want to discuss for the following week by looking up different suggestions made by anyone in the meeting. Finally, they read the chosen piece for the week. Usually, the short stories are read by Sierra— but sometimes other members will read the piece, especially if it’s a piece they suggested.
The Literature Club is a team effort. That’s why the club is always looking for new students to join in on Zoom meetings— which usually consist of less than 10 students each week. The club’s members are also looking to give the club a more “book club” feel.
Each semester, the goal is to pick at least one real book to read through and analyze for a set amount of week’s depending on the length of the book. This semester, the Literature Club has yet to start a book, but in the last few meetings they finally came to agreeing on one. This semester the Literature club will be reading “180 Seconds,” a romance novel for young adults by Jessica Park. Over the remainder of the semester, the club will be taking the book chapter by chapter and discussing what it’s about and how they feel about it.
Many of the club’s members enjoy the club because it’s a safe space to gather and share any opinions one had on the short stories. Sierra says she enjoys the club because it’s “a great outlet for relaxing after a stressful day and reading something enjoyable.”
“I would say my favorite thing about Literature Club is that as an English major who reads a lot of books and discusses them in class for grades, it’s really nice to just read for the sake of reading and talk about the pieces with some friends in a chill environment,” Nina Serafini, a sophomore with a triple English major and secretary of the Literature Club, said.
The club isn’t just looking for new members, but writers as well. Since the club is based around books and short stories to discuss, the Literature Club accepts pieces written by students to read aloud and discuss. Writers have the option to have their work be anonymous or not. Students interested in submitting writing pieces can email Brianna Sierra at bsier002@plattsburgh.edu and attend the upcoming meeting to hear how readers felt about the piece.
