Featured Photo by Makayla Sulcer
Story by Makayla Sulcer
In Process, a creative writing blog at Middle Tennessee State University, hosted their first open mic night of the semester on Thursday afternoon with over twenty creatives attending the event.
The event started in the Honor’s College lounge, but they quickly realized the event would require a bigger space. The event moved to the Sam Ingram building.
While a majority of attendees were students and alumni, some of the audience and presenters were faculty and staff from the university.
Dr. Fred Arroyo, a professor in the English department at MTSU, has hosted open mic nights for 4 years. Arroyo described the event as a safe space for writers to share their work.
Not only do the open mics serve as a space to share their literature with the world, it also is a place to meet new people.
“It definitely creates a community of writers. Most of these people attended all of our In Process events last semester,” editor of In Process Lilly Reid said.
Arroyo broke the ice, reading a poem he wrote titled “Manuela”. Each reader was given 4 minutes to present their work.
Students, alumni and faculty presented an array of creative works such as novel excerpts, songs, poems, plays and flash fiction.
Some of the works presented were projects the speaker’s have been working on for a while. For example, Kaelan Mullins presented an excerpt from a novel he explained has been in progress for 6 years. Keaston Sigler presented another work still in progress, a song titled “Elegy For Her I Once Had”.
A few students who weren’t signed up to read initially braved the podium after they watched their colleagues present.
“The community is giving a lot of people confidence. People will listen and then decide that they want to read,” Arroyo said.
The next In Process open mic night will be on March 24th at 4:30 p.m. in the Sam Ingram building.
Makayla Sulcer is a Movie Reviewer and Lifestyles Reporter for MTSU Sidelines.
To contact Lifestyles Editor Destiny Mizell, email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com. For more news, visit www.mtsusidelines.com, or follow us on Facebook at MTSU Sidelines or on Twitter at @Sidelines_News.
