Students are beginning to become more aware of and participate in the newest club offered at AHS: Writers’ Club. Supervised by English teacher Rachelle Lipp, Writer’s Club is an organized group focused on helping students become better writers, ignite creativity and get to know one another by sharing work. Writer’s Club is held every Tuesday at 3:30 in Lipp’s classroom with meetings usually lasting about an hour.

During the meetings, students get a chance to interact with their peers through different activities that inspire and spark creativity. First, they are given a topic to write about for a certain amount of time. After that, they have free will to write in whatever style they please for the remaining time. The last ten minutes are designated for sharing, described by junior Chamilla Colton as “taking a moment to figure out everyone’s originality.”

Though Colton has only gone to one meeting so far, she plans to continue and recommends the club to her peers. “If you don’t want to do it, do it anyway. You don’t have to have perfection like other artists…the paper is your canvas and all you have do is write,” Colton said.

The club was started by Lipp with the help of sophomores Clayton Jipsen and Gillian Askeland. “I wanted to start a Writer’s Club because I’ve seen some of the things people in our school can do and just like the athletic people have their sports, the writers deserve their own place to show off their skills,” Jipsen said. Describing the club as a “judge-free zone,” Jipsen recommends people to come and share anything they’ve written.

Lipp was first approached with the idea to start the club last year by numerous upperclassmen, but no solid plan was ever created. After persistence from both Askeland and Jipsen, Lipp began to build a stronger structure for the group. “Gill and Clayton said we needed a place for writers to go,” said Lipp.

With help from her students, Lipp thinks the club is going to be extremely successful as she believes there are a lot of kids who would benefit from such a group. Jipsen also feels this way as he has begun taking it upon himself to recruit members of AHS to join.“To join Writer’s Club all you have to do is show up in Lipp’s room after school on Tuesdays and have a ready to go attitude. P.S- There’s hot chocolate!”