New updates to The Walrus along with a summary of the journey The Walrus has taken in its first year at Montrose.

What is The Walrus?

The Walrus is a creative writing club that I established because I thought Montrose needed to provide more creative writing opportunities (other than the wonderful Looking Glass Newspaper). More specifically, fiction and poetry writing opportunities. Why is it called “The Walrus?” After the C.S. Lewis poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” If you didn’t already know, The Looking Glass was also named after C.S. Lewis’ “Alice in the Wonderland.” 

General Info

Every Montrose student is welcome to join the club! Before school shut down, we met during lunchtimes. For grades 6-8 (Middle School Division), meetings were held in Mrs. Roberts’ room during lunch, led by MS leader Eliza Glaser ‘24, and grades 9-12 (Upper School Division) met in Mrs. Whitlock’s room with me. 

Student activities range from “Trope Talks” (discussing what tropes, or literary themes, work in a story and which ones don’t) to speedy prompt writings and round robins. 

Previous Contests & New Additions

Throughout the year, the club has participated in numerous poetry and fiction contests such as the Appelly Poetry Contest, which a number of members received publications from.

This April, during our time at home, The Walrus will participate in CampNaNoWriMo. It’s a great motivation to get club members writing with a personal word count goal.

Essentially it’s a process with minimal steps:

1) Put your own custom word count goal to reach by the end of the month.

2) Write every day or so to maintain that goal.

3) Repeat steps 1 and 2 until the goal is completed

The Walrus will have its own group on the NaNoWriMo website where students can chat with and motivate other members of the group to reach their goals. If you’re feeling the urge to get some writing in during quarantine, let me know soon if you would like to join — space is limited!

New Section in the Looking Glass Newspaper

The Looking Glass added a section to the newspaper for “New Creative Writing,” so expect to see some of the creative writing girls’ work online very soon!

If you’re interested in participating in NaNoWriMo or would like to submit your poem, essay, or short story (or both!) — contact 22juche@mont…, 24eglaeser@mont…, Mrs. Whitlock or Mrs. Roberts for more info!

We have some extra time during this quarantine era of our lives, so why not get back to doing what you love or even try a new thing! Write a poem or a short story, you’ll never know where it’ll lead…

Jenn Uche ’22, Opinions Editor 

22juche@montroseschool.org