While scrolling through the online Club Rush slideshow during the 2020-2021 school year, then-freshman Binny Park noticed the lack of a creative writing club.

Though slightly disappointed, the idea of creating a club didn’t occur to her until towards the end of her freshman year. She felt urged to bring this experience to Sunny Hills after attending an online creative writing workshop the summer before her freshman year.

“I was actually really worried about starting the club because I wasn’t sure if that was a responsibility that I could handle,” Park said. “I, in the end, did decide it was worth a try and I’m really grateful to the people who helped me set this up and figure out what to do to start the club.”

Only an underclassman, the student held doubts about her own writing abilities and her authority to lead the club. 

“I had to realize that creating and leading a club doesn’t have anything to do with being a ‘good writer,’” Park said. “Ultimately, it’s being able to lead a group effort which, like writing, is something I’ve improved on over time.”

That’s eventually how then-sophomore president Park created the Writers Alliance club in the 2021-2022 school year.

That year, she began initiating a project for her club members — Solarium, the school’s first literary magazine in over 40 years. The club members spent about two club meetings with the adviser to agree on producing the literary magazine and worked on its production for nearly a year.

Park wanted the name of the literary magazine to hold the ideas of light and creativity, ultimately deciding on Solarium to symbolize the team’s goal of letting creativity flow freely through this new platform.

At the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year, then-junior Park began advertising and accepting writing submissions to include in the literary magazine through the club’s Instagram (@writersallianceshhs), launching a year-long project for the club.

On May 30, the club published and distributed 22 copies of the full-color 32-page literary magazine Solarium for $15 each.

“I think for the first year, considering the technical difficulties and trying to figure out stuff on our own, it worked out a lot better than we had anticipated,” Writers Alliance club president senior and Solarium editor-in-chief Park said. “I’m really proud of the people who were part of it as well for working so hard on it.”

INSIDE THE SOLARIUM

The magazine consisted of three sections that allowed student writers to freely express themselves in various genres including poetry, humor and short stories: The Scholastic Spotlight which highlighted three awardees – then-junior Park and Katie Hong and then-sophomore Dana Lee – from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, Writing Wars, which compiled selections from a friendly contest held within the club, and Editor’s Highlights, featuring five other pieces from then-juniors Hannah Choi and Talithia Arthurs and then-sophomore Ian Kim that the editors felt deserved recognition.

Personal memoir editor senior Choi, Writing Wars editor senior Dylan Guiterrez, poetry editor senior Hong, humor editor junior Kim and critical analysis editor senior Katie Lee collectively worked together for around two months to edit and proofread the works under their section after each submission. 

“I believe that a lot of the writings were really well and well made,” said Guiterrez, who wrote a story for the Writing Wars section. “Also our collaborations with the featured artists were also very, very well done; they were all very talented.”

The club’s adviser Thomas Butler initially suggested the idea to begin a literary magazine in May 2022, the same year the club was created, pitching in ideas for layouts and guiding with possible obstacles the students may run into.

“The biggest issue I ran into was that I knew that time would get away from them because it always takes longer than you think,” Butler said. “I just wanted them to put out a literary magazine that includes various forms of genres and get a wide spread of different offers.”

The executive cabinet consisting of Choi, Gutierrez, Hong and Park began recruiting contributing writers through the club’s Instagram in January last year, pulling the interest of students from outside the club.

Writers not already a member of the club submitted their pieces using a Google Form located on the club’s website by Saturday, Jan. 28, which were then looked over and revised by the editors.

Park, who contributed three writing pieces, said she personally reached out to junior Dana Lee after finding her name listed for an Honorable Mention at the 2022 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Lee’s submission was a poem expressing her gratitude for her parents titled “Thank you” and was willing to include her work in the magazine.

“We started promoting on Instagram, but we also reached out to people we found on our own,” Park said. “We found out who [Dana] was and asked her if we could enter the writing that won in our magazine.”

By the end of the 2021-2022 school year, Park said she discussed printing options for the long-term project with former Associated Student Body [ASB] adviser Mike Paris, who suggested using Amazon’s Print On Demand service. After his retirement, the club members met a setback after restarting the process with ASB adviser David Fenstermaker.

“Mr. Fenstermaker told us that it probably wouldn’t be possible to use Amazon, but if it was, it would be extremely complicated which is why we opted for traditional printing in the end,” she said. “Mr. Fenstermaker was really supportive of our magazine.”

Park said she and her club co-leaders ended up choosing Crescent Printing in Fullerton.

The students worked closely with the assistant principals for the publication, while reaching out to principal Craig Weinreich to include a short statement from him in the magazine.

“One of the most outstanding features of SHHS is the wide variety of student clubs available on campus that allows our Lancers to find ways to be involved and connect with others in positive and constructive ways,” Weinreich said in the Foreword of the magazine. “Our Writers Alliance is one of these here on the Hills through this literary magazine, Solarium.”

Principal Craig Weinreich, who received a copy of the work before its official publication, said he enjoyed the new platform as a way for students to display their creative writing abilities.

“It was a very nice new addition to what our students can produce,” Weinreich said. “It was good to see the things that they were interested in there.”

FACING CHALLENGES

Park received a total of 13 submissions from nine students, ranging from genres in humor and personal memoirs to poetry. She initially anticipated a magazine consisting of around 20 pages, but expanded it to 32 pages after receiving more interest than expected.

“I think the most important part about, especially the first year of this magazine, is getting writing to be a free space to write,” Park said. “If you want to get your writing published, this is a place where you can publish whatever is important to you without being told ‘no.’”

The club president said the design aspects posed the biggest challenge, especially with no one holding extensive experience using professional software. Instead, the editors defaulted to Canva to design the pages and seniors Iris Kim and Zoe Kim to create illustrations for certain stories.

“Canva is not exactly the most user-friendly, so a lot of time was spent unnecessarily moving everything around and making sure everything was even,” Park said. “Fighting with Canva was probably the hardest part.”

Solarium Writing Wars editor senior Dylan Gutierrez, who submitted a piece titled “Your Average Household Family”, reflected that the hardest part of composing the paper involved coming to conclusions about certain written pieces.

“We ran into a few problems finding new things or finding things in the writing that we disagreed with between the editors,” Guiterrez said. “I think one of the things we really wanted was just more submissions, and we hope to do that more for our next magazine.”

Taking inspiration from other magazines and experimenting with Canva templates, the editors created a front cover featuring a photograph of the sunrise taken by Hong which was edited and designed by Park and Choi.

DISTRIBUTION DAY

Park received 30 copies of Solarium after picking them up from Crescent Printing on Monday, May 29, and announced distribution days on the club’s Instagram account for the rest of that finals week through Thursday, June 1, during break, lunch and after school.

The magazines sold for $15 with cash-only payments from Tuesday-Wednesday, May 30-31, in Room 34. Park took charge of managing the sales along with Butler.

“The distribution didn’t go as well as we’d hoped,” Butler said. “We got the final copies back about a week before the end of school, so there wasn’t much time for sales and distribution.”

Guiterrez said he feels proud of all the writers and illustrators who contributed and helped build the magazine.

“Our initial goals were that we wanted our magazine to look as professional as possible while still maintaining a personality separate from the other publications here on campus,” he said. “We wanted to stand out so that way, readers would know what they’re jumping into.”

Park personally gifted her freshman Honors English teacher Jennifer Kim a copy of Solarium to express her gratitude for advising a writing competition she participated in.

“Binny is an amazing student and an amazing writer, so I’m not surprised that she would be a part of something like this,” Kim said. “I think it’s really awesome that my students can express themselves in these diverse ways, and I don’t think that at that age I would have been doing things like her.”

“Every part of the magazine is so above and beyond what I could ever do,” Kim said. “I think it would be wonderful to have an outlet like this for the kids.”

The writers plan on publishing another magazine by the end of this year and begin an annual tradition, though the details on page numbers and distribution days are yet undecided.

“We’re really hoping that this is a yearly activity that will go on even after all of our seniors graduate including myself,” said Park, who plans to major in Chemistry or Comparative Literature in college. “I think it was really strange for me as a freshman to realize that there wasn’t creative writing at a school like Sunny Hills, so I hope that this will carry on into the future.”

Students interested in a copy of Solarium may purchase one at Room 34 for $15 each. Park said she plans on releasing a PDF copy on the club’s website, depending on the results from an online competition in January.

Writers Alliance meets every Thursday during lunch in Room 34. Students interested in writing for the Writers Alliance can contact @writersallianceshhs on Instagram or visit its website, writersallianceshhs.weebly.com.