Write Things
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Regular teacher mentors Neni Sta. Romana Cruz and Write Things director Roel Sta. Romana Cruz
Write Things intertwines both the knowledge and experience offered by published authors (only published authors, as they know best the joys and angsts of the craft), and a shared passion for literature through exposure to many different readings in our sessions. We also assign various writing exercises and regularly critique each student’s work with much care, to ensure continuous improvement in writing styles. We emphasize the importance of constant development so that each of our students may learn the value of knowledge itself.
For those (both children and young adults) who wish to write on a more consistent basis, aside from the Write Things Summer Workshop, we have the Write Things Saturday Hangout, which challenges young writers further and allows them to continue sharpening their writing style during the schoolyear, even after our more intensive summer sessions. We also have offered quarterly adult classes since 2015.
Teens group at summer workshop with ad executive-author Russell Molina
At year end, Write Things publishes an anthology, titled “In Our Own Words,” where each student’s best written work, having gone through several drafts, is compiled and unveiled during the launch of our finished product. Through this, we encourage students to experience the publishing process, and each year our number of published works within every new anthology increases, we are lucky to say, both in skill and in number.
Ultimately, we have formed a community of young and adult writers who share a complex and wonderful passion for weaving words and the crafting of stories.
The sensation of writing may be strange for some; describing concrete objects or occurrences through the use of words can often prove to be challenging or tedious as a task. It need not be so. We want to alter feelings of foreignness when it comes to the written word. Instead, our goal is to form a familiarity through our lessons, which allow others to embrace the pen instead of feel indifferent to it. We believe that distancing oneself from the written word means distancing from one of the most important aspects of life.
With poet Mikael de Lara Co
A specific ideal with which Write Things was formed is the necessity to convey reading and writing not just as an opportunity to share emotions and the human experience, but also as a lifestyle.
Words outnumber us and litter our surroundings with joyful force. They are in the air we breathe, in the noise and pleasant chaos that register in our ears and minds, in the fragments of taste that build upon our tongues. Each word serves a purpose, and we want to continuously instill its appreciation in our students.
Poetry made easy with Mookie Katigbak Lacuesta
With Write Things, students are able to exercise the passion for words by making use of their own creativity and dipping their pens in various pools of ink: fiction; poetry; non-fiction or essays; and even writing for school. As we arrange each class uniquely with various successful and published authors from varying areas of expertise, we also wish to convey that flexibility is key in writing, where each genre is just as puzzling as the next, and can provide just as much knowledge and insight. No single genre is able to survive on its own, and each form of writing generates a more vibrant and eclectic world within literature.
Therefore, with everything we have to offer, it is our hope that each student who takes up literature and creative writing with us is able to create a work that is distinctive.
Russ Molina introduces the Pixar formula for all ideas
Write Things aims not only to develop skills in creative writing, but also to refine them and help students find their defining mark in their mode of writing. This is where we may stand out as a company that offers creative writing classes -- we wish to go beyond merely teaching. We wish to allow students to continue learning even outside our classes and to take in every word, poem, story, article, or essay with a fresh outlook that will supplement their knowledge.
The best testimony comes from one of our students who said of her Write Things experience: “I entered the room as an (ordinary) person; I left it as an author.”
Roel Sta. Romana Cruz
Roel Sta. Romana Cruz, a Bachelor of Arts in Literature major from De La Salle University, is a regular writing mentor at Write Things. His short stories have appeared in The Philippines Free Press, Philippines Graphic, and Story Philippines.