By Micaela Dagler
“It’s nice having a space so open and safe, so exposed and yet so secure.” – Penny Gillespie, a sophomore and Mathematics/Mechatronics student
A student-led club where participants are bonded by a shared passion for the creative power of words is anticipating an open-mic event as well as students’ submissions for their annual literary journal: In the Ords.
The club is led by Hayley Matto, a Humanities and Communications/Psychology student who also writes for the campus newspaper: the Lutrinae.
The open mic “Take Up Space” event is Wednesday.
Submissions for the literary journal are currently open and the deadline for this semester is Nov. 20. It receives around 50 to 75 submissions a semester.
In The Ords collaborates with the feminist writing club Litmatch and the Maker Space for the “Take Up Space” event. The event was inspired by a conversation between Matto and Alexandria Jones, an HCOM professor and poet. Jones will be featured this semester and says she always looks forward to hearing students share their writing and that “It’s really beautiful to witness the growth and connections built.”
The first time they hosted the event in 2024, they had to turn people away because it reached capacity of about 40. Jones says “Writing is most powerful when it is shared.”
The name In The Ords was inspired by the writings published in the Anglo-Saxon wordhord, called in “The Word Exchange” by Michael Matto, who is coincidentally Hayley Matto’s uncle. When she found her uncle’s writings were connected to the origins of In The Ords, she said it “made me feel destined to end up a part of this club!”
Kent Leatham, a writer and former HCOM faculty, started the club in 2017 with a handful of students and little support. Today, interest in the club and the journal has increased. Besides helping each other with grammar, ideas and inspirations, the purpose of the club is not only to “serve as a safe space on campus for writers, but also allow students to share, grow and expand their writing as well as give them an opportunity to publish” Matto says.
The four officers chose the themes for its literary journal and this fall semester is “Harvest” and the spring will be “Decay.” Last year, the themes were “linger” and “bloom.” Every officer is also an editor, but any member can also join the editing team. Currently, there are 13 to 14 people active.
The club meets every Wednesday in the OSU, room 311, from 7 to 8 p.m. Penny Gillespie has been attending meetings for over a month and joined because “I thought it would be a good chance to get critiqued by people”.
Matto started as the treasurer in 2024 and later became the President. Matto “sought out community and found it In The Ords as well as the Lutrinae.” When asked what her first time was like she mentioned that it “felt like I finally found my people” and she thought she would be more nervous to share her writings, but “found comfort in other people sharing.”
Matto says “I think we’ve served as a really open place to people of all walks of life” and a safe place for emotional expression as there is a “level of vulnerability that comes with sharing writing.”
Matto mentions that artists should continue to create despite artificial intelligence. She says, “I hope by offering student publications like our journal, In the Ords can keep some of the real voices of our campus artists alive.”
In The Ords is a self publishing literary journal and reserves all copyrights.