Emma Gonzalez and Kristina Kugaevskaya are both juniors and co-presidents of the Creative Writing Club at Glendale High School. Emma is half-Guatemalan and half-Armenian, but she was born here in Glendale.
Kristina was born in Russia but grew up in the Dominican Republic. She lived there for 10 years and moved here in 2019, right before entering her freshman year of high school at GHS. Some of their hobbies include reading, writing, and spending time with friends and family.
Emma and Kristina had several reasons for starting their club. “We decided to collaboratively form the Creative Writing Club in order to gather more people that share a common interest under the same roof,” Emma said. “We wanted to provide a place for people to have many writing opportunities, a safe space to receive criticism.” In the Creative Writing Club, members are involved in many different activities, such as writing short stories, poems, screenplays, and songs.
Being a part of this club will give you several opportunities for community service, like writing poetry for nursing homes and reading stories to elementary school kids. “We also want to introduce a new section to the GHS Explosion,” Kristina said, “where we could publish written works from our club members several times a month.” Hopefully, all Nitro students will check them out when they start posting.
Kristina personally likes writing short stories in the genres of murder mystery and fantasy, in general. One of her favorite writers is Cassandra Clare. “She does such an amazing job at world building and creating these unique characters that you simply love to love,” Kristina said. “I would really want to be like her when I grow up.”
Emma’s favorite writer is Emily Dickinson, because her poetry was ahead of its time. Emma really has a love for poetry. “I have even had my work published in two books,” she said. “And I am working with a publisher to create a book featuring a collection of my latest poetry.” Her work was featured in the 2015 and 2016 editions of An Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans.
Kristina thinks that their club is vital for GHS. “I think that the Creative Writing Club is really needed on campus, in order for students who are aspiring authors, as Emma and I are, to have some place to display their writings and get constructive criticism, in order for them to advance further in their writing career,” she said. “The main goal for the club is to build a safe space for all of these aspiring authors on campus, and make a sort of family.”
Kristina and Emma hope that this club will succeed and that more people will join and be willing to do the activities. However, they think it may be a bit challenging at first, because they’ve never done anything like this before.
This club will be really good for helping people make friends, because most club activities involve talking to one another. Students should definitely join if they enjoy writing and want to expand their writing abilities. Club members will also meet new people with similar interests and be able to gain community service hours.
Club meetings are on Mondays in Ms. Tumanyan’s Room 2235. If you are interested in joining the Creative Writing Club, you can follow them on Instagram: @ghs_creativewriting. Get writing, Nitros!
