At Book Soup, an independent bookstore in Hollywood, a crowd of friends and parents listened to the creative writing class’ work.

English teacher James Russo and his creative writing class curate a literary magazine, entitled “Pillars of Salt,” which is published twice a year. For the first time, they held a culminating reading of their work for friends and family at Book Soup in West Hollywood on Thursday, May 10.

“This was the first time we had something like this,” Kat Mackay ’20 said. “Creative writing is such an amazing class because you have these opportunities.”

This semester, the creative writing class worked on a poetry and short story project. The project was time consuming and included frequent conferences and revisions.

“The idea was to get them to understand the importance of the revision process and, at the end, to get to present their piece to a live audience,” Russo said.

Overall, students said the presentation of their work was a positive experience. Lena Jones ’20 said she especially enjoyed the intimate environment and opportunity to interact with the audience.

“I finally got to see the consequences of my writing,” she said. “That in and of itself made the creative writing showcase a necessary ending to our year.”