MUSE Literary Journal has been collecting essays, poems, drawings and photos about light, created by students, to produce their annually-published journal in an effort to get more people on campus involved in the club’s school activities.

This year, MUSE is creating a journals with the theme of “Let There Be Light.” According to junior and current Editor-in Chief Arminé Dingilian, “Let There Be Light” was chosen because the theme can be expressed in many different ways, not only in language art.

“We chose [let there be light] as the theme because it is something that many people [relate to]. [One] can express the idea of light not just through language in English class, but [also] incorporating other classes like science and history,” Dingilian said.

Last year’s theme was “metamorphosis” and various drawings, creative writing, essays, poems and photos made by students were put together to create this journal.

“I think this [journal] shows our Woodbridge Warrior spirit and…imagination,” sophomore Amy Joo said.

Senior Vanessa Qian also said she believes student creativity can be shown through the magazine, since many of the English classes do not have as creative of a writing curriculum.

MUSE includes five members: Qian, Joo, sophomore Jocelyn Hsieh, sophomore Imaani Choudhuri and Dingilian.

“Even though there is a head for the club, this is a team effort,” Dingilian said. “Everybody’s opinion [is] accepted and respected.”

Despite the small staff, MUSE has produced high quality journals in the past; published journals can be seen in most of the English classes and Room J212, English teacher and adviser Lisa Choe’s classroom. Because of the huge amount of effort that each person puts into producing the journal, the students said they believe that the number of people in their club does not matter.

“I am very happy with the people who are in the club right now,” Dingilian said. “We are doing our best [to] make this journal. I believe that the journal that we will publish this year will be pretty good.”

Because MUSE is a non-profit publishing club, it hosts fundraising events to make money for printing and publishing the journals every year.

Currently, MUSE members have finished collecting artwork submissions from different students and are in the process of putting the journal together. According to Choe, the journal will be published at the end of May or early June.

According to Qian, looking at different students’ work is interesting because she is able to see the different creative work that each student produces, and this allows her to better appreciate different forms and perspectives of art.

MUSE is still welcoming new members who are excited to work to produce the school journal.

“We are always open, but…we are looking for somebody who really will put the effort into [the journals,]” Dingilian said.