Embedded Files
Welcome to Winchester High School’s 2023-2024 Semester Two Literary Magazine! The Creative Writing Guild is excited to present our final publication of the year, featuring creative writing and art from the club and from WHS students. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this issue of the LitMag, and we hope you enjoy this collaboration of writing and artwork.
Sincerely,
The LitMag Editors - Evelyn LaMont, Kyle Plosky, and Aniana Garciano
Front and back cover: Avani Tomar
Creative Writing Guild Activities
During Creative Writing Guild meetings, we spend a lot of time on collaborative writing activities, often involving everyone starting a story and then passing it around to continue, so everyone's unique writing style is visible within one creation, often resulting in hilarity. These are some of our favorites from the past semester.
Thumbs Up
Gertrude: Rat the Cat! Scat the Rat! mAtTt the Rat! I, the wonderful meteorologist slash astronomer GERTRUDE has dire news for the world!
Chorus (Rat Scat and mAtTt): What is it? What is it?(a)
Gertrude: A meteor shall hit and it shall kill whomever it’s dastardly rockiness touches
Chorus (Rat Scat and mAtTt): Oh no! oh no!(b#)
Miller Wants Greek Yoghurt
MILLER enters the stage from stage left. He carries a spoon and an empty container of Greek yoghurt, a forlorn look on his face.
Oh, Greek yoghurt, Greek yoghurt, how I adore thee, Greek yoghurt. I have wandered these barren fields, these arid deserts, in search of thee, but alas— my efforts remain fruitless. I return to this humble abode empty handed and empty hearted, with nothing to show for my labor.
Eclipse Tales
One of our most memorable meetings this spring was on April 8th when a near-total solar eclipse was visible from Winchester High School. We celebrated by writing a series of stories in which a different writer wrote each line and the previous lines were blocked out, just as the moon blocked out the sun. Evidently they lack any sort of structure or plot, but they were a lot of fun to write and then reveal the full story at the end.
Pass-Around Story:
A Midsummer Night's Scream
Stacy struck a match and lit the pile on fire, watching it grow into an inferno. The smoke burned her eyes, but the campfire songs sung by her friends drowned it out in a horrible, off pitch amalgamation of voices. I think fondly of the day as it turns to night. She quickly made the fire bigger before throwing in her first victim. They screamed and screamed, their flesh glowing in the firelight.
Pass-Around Story:
The (Other) Odyssey
Homer Simpson couldn’t remember the last time he had been to ancient Greece. The hallucinations from the lotus fruit made it to hard to tell the real visits from the hallucinated ones. That and the fact he was dying. He also wasn’t sure what the word “odyssey” meant and he didn’t know how to use the dictionary. So, he had a racoon from his local donut shop. The racoon translated the text as follows: a long journey full of adventures, that gives one knowledge or understanding.
Pass-Around Story:
Animate
Adam laid in his bed Saturday morning, feeling a bit sluggish. Suddenly he was jolted awake by a screeching sound next to his ear. His phone had grown a mouth and was screaming as much as its lungs would allow (did it even have lungs?) “12 new messages! 1,612 unread emails! And someone left a comment on your post! Are you awake yet!?”
Prose, Poetry, Art, and Photography
The Monster
Anonymous
Across the alleyway, a creature waits in silence. Red and black bumps run down its arms and back. Some are scabbed over while others are open sores, beating with the monster’s pulse. The monster’s hair falls in greasy chunks, hiding cuts and bruises. Skin tears away from the flesh on the monster’s lips. Dried blood.
Silver Eyes
Anonymous
Through thick clouds, small rays of golden light dusted the tops of trees littering sharp pine needles on the snow. The small sun offered some respite from the piercing cold that had covered the forest. Snow slowly drifted to the ground, covering deep footprints. The hunter continued his wait on a snowy hill, scanning the frozen terrain.
Through a Hole in Space
Pencil Title
Hundreds of billions of years into the future, humanity will create the first Dyson Sphere, an object which could harness the entire power of the Sun. However, after tasting the first bits of this new technology, humanity hungered for more. They went into space to begin a new era, one among the stars.
A Day in the Life of Ted the Security Camera
Anonymous
My name is Ted and I have a REALLY fun job. Yes, I’m a security camera. More specifically, the security camera who sits at the end of the third floor B wing, in case you were wondering. Now, you’re probably thinking, how is being a security camera fun? Well, technically my job is to catch violence and intruders and drugs and other things of that sort but that's just the boring part.
Fleeting Homes
Anonymous
From the bow of the ship, Araceli Harbaugh stared through the billowing curtains of fog, slowly parting as the bow of the S.S Columbia carved through the waves. The lights of San Francisco twinkled from beyond the veil, a constellation of the work of countless architects welcoming her wholeheartedly. Never in thirty-three years had she imagined seeing these shores approach as they did.
Human Seeking Something
Anonymous
She had posed the fateful question in the elevator one day.
"Do you want to go on a date with me?"
"What?"
She repeated her question, though her words had gone through perfectly the first time. What he didn't get was the meaning. He was seventeen years old, and he had never thought about dating.
Thank you for reading the Semester Two LitMag! We hope you enjoyed the writing and artwork created by the Creative Writing Guild and the students of Winchester High School. Thank you to everyone who submitted, you should be very proud of your hard work. Congratulations to the graduating class of 2024, and to everyone else who’s stuck here, we look forward to seeing you next fall.
Peace out,
The LitMag Editors - Aniana Garciano, Kyle Plosky, and Evelyn LaMont
Page updated
Report abuse