past issues

volume five

Some assignments begin and end as assignments, but many involve emotional and personal processes — at the Writing Center, we celebrate all parts of process. This issue of essay is interested in writing that is or was a labor of love.

This might mean that the writer so deeply connected with a topic that writing the piece came easily to them. It might also mean that they weren’t happy with the version of the piece they submitted, or that it got a grade they weren’t happy with, but despite the setbacks, they stuck with the process. Or that they talked to so many people and got so many edits that it ended up feeling like a community effort. Here, we think about “labor” in all senses of the word, and “love” in all senses of the word.

volume six

“Forget talent,” Octavia Butler writes in “Furor Scribendi,” and that is what this issue of essay aims to do. As Butler goes on to say, “Continued learning is more dependable than talent. … Persistence is essential to any writer.” To focus on persistence, practice, and perseverance over talent can be a difficult task in the university setting, especially when it comes to writing. Perseverance is a slow act, and college writing tends to be a fast-paced, fleeting process; deadlines and extracurricular commitments often get in the way of thoughtful revision, multiple drafts, and sustained time with a single piece. In the end, those deemed to be gifted and talented writers—a narrow and privileged category—receive the most merit.

volume seven

fall semester at Pomona asks a lot of first-year and transfer students. They’re transported to an entirely new place, where they’re expected to navigate everything from laundry-room fires to ant-infested dorm rooms, Halloweekend and course registration and a brand new peer group — all without the support of their parents and the familiarity of home. At the same time as all this change is occurring, students are also asked to learn how to write as academics — a daunting challenge all on its own.

essay, in the past, has been used as a platform to celebrate the writing process: the brainstorming, scrapped outlines, rough drafts and revisions that often go unrecognized once a piece of writing is
turned in. This is the side of writing that partners at the CSWIM often get to see — essay tries to make this visible to the public. However, upon reflecting on the sheer scope of the personal and emotional growth that takes place over the first year of college, we wanted this issue of essay to amplify the other crucial side of writing center work: the personal element. To work at the CSWIM means to engage with writing as it is being created by people, not as it exists as an isolated product. With this intention in mind, the theme the background was born. What was going on, we wanted to know, behind the scenes of first-year writing? What kind of personal growth and life changes were our authors experiencing as they dove into college academics for the first time?