Bridgewater, Va- Instructor of English and Professional Writing Nicole Yurcaba’s Editing and Marketing class, also known as PWR 319, held a literary event in the Boitnott Room Thursday evening, Nov. 21. 

Students in the class self-organized and hosted an open mic night, which was open to any and all students and professors across Bridgewater’s campus. The name of the event was titled A Night of Creativi-TEA.

Performances ranged from musical acts, to monologues, to poetry, performed by a mix of students and faculty members. Various acts from the night were Dr. Sam Hamilton’s “The Greatest Sheepdog That Ever Sheepdogged,” Dr. Scott Suter’s banjo performance and Joan Lee’s “Death Penalty.” 

Attendees were also free to sign up at the door upon entry and were added to the list of performances. 

In attendance were a number of students from various sections of English 110, who were encouraged to attend by Yurcaba and Dr. Stanley Galloway, professor of English, who performed his poem, “Skeggard Song.”

When asked how the event went, Yurcaba said, “I think it went fantastically. My students pulled it off excellently, with top notch levels of professionalism. This is the first time we have had this class taught, so my goal became to have students design a literary event because not all students get to take the poetry festival class.” 

”Hosting a literary event is an integral part of working with editors and publishers and being an author,” continued Yurcaba, “because sometimes you have to organize your own literary events to promote your own work.”

Dean Barker, a member of the class and also co-emcee for the evening’s event, said, “I thought it went well, there wasn’t much time to prepare because we had two people that we didn’t know about, but our talent team did a great job working to get us information on everybody. I thought we did well at presenting the performers and giving them a good introduction and I thought everyone did a great job performing.”

Barker later said, “This is my first time being emcee for any event. I think everyone did a great job preparing, and there was very little work that had to get done at the end…everyone was ready weeks ago…overall, we did a great job and had a pretty good crowd there.”

Held in the Boitnott room, 319 students brought baked goods. Attendees were invited to snack on the homemade goods and a wide selection of hot teas.