By Hannah Mason, Assistant Editor
November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and the WLU English department and international English honor society Sigma Tau Delta are helping the West Liberty campus celebrate.
According to Nicole Naegele, Sigma Tau Delta faculty adviser and WLU Instructor of English, the goal of National Novel Writing Month is to write a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month of November.
National Novel Writing Month is also a nonprofit company with the purpose of encouraging aspiring writers of all ages and occupations and from all over the globe to dedicate thirty days to writing a novel. Anyone interested in official NaNoWriMo events or in signing up to participate in the challenge can go to http://nanowrimo.org/.
On the West Liberty campus, Naegele said that though Sigma Tau Delta does not expect to write every day or to reach the 50,000 word count, they are hosting an event to have the whole campus help to write a distinctly West Liberty novel.
They will be doing this through an Exquisite Corpse event, which Naegele said, “was originally a parlor game in which a group of people drew a picture or wrote a story collectively. They did this without seeing the entire composition as they added to it.”
For Sigma Tau Delta’s Exquisite Corpse, they will be writing a novel one line at a time, with each writer only being able to see one line before their own. Naegele said, “This usually results in a fun, surreal piece of writing.” The goal is to have as many different authors as possible to create a very diverse and interesting story.
Sigma Tau Delta will be hosting the Exquisite Corpse event in the Student Union on Friday, Nov. 7 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sigma Tau Delta encourages everyone on campus to stop by and “donate” a line for the novel.
In addition, Sigma Tau Delta is also giving back to the community during NaNoWriMo with a book drive for Warwood Middle School.
Naegele said, “Late last year, the state of West Virginia joined a national campaign to encourage grade-level reading proficiency, since many students currently do not read at their grade level.” The campaign requires teachers to stock their classrooms with grade level-appropriate books, but many teachers have been facing a lack of these books for their students.
So, the students of Sigma Tau Delta are taking the initiative to give back to the community and promote literacy by collecting middle school reading level books (grades 6-8). Everyone in the West Liberty community is encouraged to drop off gently used books of middle school reading level at one of the drop off box locations in the Student Union, the Elbin Library, or the student lounge in the Humanities Department in the basement of the Library. The book drive will run until Nov. 21.