A reading presentation of the Creative Writing Club’s published work for the second year in a row occurred in room LR 106 of the Rio Hondo Campus, Friday 2:30 pm, May 11. The reading was held to celebrate the second annual publication of the club’s book titled Neighborhood.

The Writing Club has existed at Rio Hondo for eight years. And is comprised of two faculty staff instructors, Theresa Freije and Mariano Zaro, acting as advisors to the club, students with an interest in creative writing. Music major Victorhugo Herrera,  24, is the current elected president of the club. Herrera described the club’s activities as usually choosing a weekly topics to write about, along with the club environment providing a “haven” for aspiring writers to practice their craft away from their everyday lives.

 Herrera, a student with only two semesters, plans on transferring to Cal Poly Pomona, and wants a career in music composition. He submitted “Love in the Dark” in the clubs book, and said that he first joined the club two semesters into his schooling career here at Rio and always felt bad because he couldn’t originally invest as much time as he wanted to.

“The creative writing club has been making the idea of publishing a book for some time, however; it just never seemed to pan through for whatever reason, you know? Due to lack of initiative or lack of material to publish, and this year I felt like we had to do it. And so this year, with the professors, we pushed really with the students and chose as a group what we were going to write about it.”

Herrera expressed that, as a group, they choose the theme of the book together and plans to do the same next semester.

Addy Paulette Zamora, a 22 year old working on obtaining her AA in English, had her two poems published in the book, “Stranger” and “Seasons of Love.” Zamora said that it felt great to have her work published at such a short notice. The Cal State bound English major plans to become a counselor after she graduates from Rio next fall.

“This book was a miracle, I don’t know if Viktor described it as a miracle but it was a miracle because it happened in one day. One day we collected all the pieces and were able to get the final push because of Viktor. We know Viktor is perfect for being president because he is so talented in leading with being to be realistic and compromises.”

Zaro and Freije described the efforts of its the leadership in the highest regards and spoke about Herrera continuing his current role as president of the club, and club member Epifania Solves becoming the clubs vice president next semester.

For more information regarding the club contact the writing clubs advisors.