Annual Traditions

From  Pollock to potluck, the Writers House Community has developed a number of events that have matured into annual traditions. These traditions thrive from the passionate investment of students, faculty and staff who love, year after year, to carry on and reinvent the form, function and fun of each one.

 

Join the Hospitality Committee and become an indispensable planner of the annual traditions at Writers House.

 

 • Welcome Back Open Mic: Our first event of the year, the Welcome Back Open Mic and barbeque offers new students a chance to meet the Writers House, to mingle with returning students and to read from their own work or from an author they admire.

• Homecoming Tailgate: As part of the College's homecoming celebration, Writers  House decorates a tent that students use as homebase to greet returning alumni. Students also devise a writing-realted theme in hopes of winning the best tent competion (accomplished in 2007).

• Beat Night: An evening of visionary enlightenment with the usual suspects from the 1950s Beat generation, Jack Kerouac; Allen Ginsberg; William S. Burroughs; and others, Beat Night offers students a venue to read their favorite pieces of Beat literature. The beatnik vibe includes also apple pie, ice cream and Jackson Pollock splatter paintings.

• Dead Writers Society: As the name suggests, students dress as their favorite dead writer and read from his or her work. There are copious gothic decorations and fall-themed foods. Prizes are awarded for the best costumes.

• Thanksgiving potluck: One of the most anticipated events of the fall, the Writers House Thanksgiving dinner brings together writers, readers and friends to share words over a home-cooked feast, delight in faces they haven't seen since the beginning of the semester, and watch as faculty duel with truculent (and succulent) turkeys.

• End-of-year party: The last Writers House party of the year, this special evening is a celebration to say good-bye to our graduating seniors. Food, gifts (ping-pong!) and tribute abound.


 

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