Photo courtesy of Claire Davidson

Writers of fiction are usually solo artists, as attempts to produce the perfect novel can take a lot of time working alone. But each year during the month of November, storytellers take a break from solitude to socialize with fellow writers while doing what they love most.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is an Internet-based creative writing project that brings together aspiring novelists from around the world by challenging them to write and submit a fiction novel of 50,000 words before Nov. 30.

“NaNoWriMo is a great community building exercise,” said creative writing major Julianne Bellin. “Writing is usually a very solitary thing, but with NaNoWriMo you can collaborate with people from all over.”

The UC Santa Cruz Writer’s Society celebrated NaNoWriMo’s official kickoff on Nov. 1 at midnight during a get-together at the Kresge Writing Center. About 25 students attended the event, which continued into the early hours of the morning.

“It’s very exciting to see people coming together to write,” said creative writing major Claire Davidson. “Even if they don’t all finish their novels within the deadline, I think it’s great to have that community.”

Students took breaks in-between writing to share their ideas with one another and snack on sugary treats, sipping coffee to further fuel their creativity. Most students at the NaNoWriMo kickoff party were eager, if not anxious, to get started on their stories.

“I want to take the ideas I have in my head and turn them into something tangible,” said computer science major Max Villet. “Hopefully I’ll find that hook and just go at it for hours.”

Davidson said a similar kickoff event was held at Denny’s Restaurant on Ocean Street for students who live off campus, and for other NaNoWriMo participants who reside in the larger Santa Cruz County.

Bellin said the event downtown attracted about two dozen people, including residents from Boulder Creek and Capitola.

“There was a sense of camaraderie … Even though there was some chit-chat, people were focused on starting their novels,” Bellin said.

NaNoWriMo is the brainchild of freelance writer Chris Baty, who started the project in San Francisco in July 1999. Back then, there were only 21 participants, most of whom were friends of Baty. Since its inaugural year, NaNoWriMo has developed into a non-profit organization that offers writing programs in high school classrooms around the world.

Bellin said the Writer’s Society at UCSC has celebrated NaNoWriMo since the society’s creation in 2010. Bellin said the project offered participants the opportunity to do something special with friends and family.

“Last year we had a guy who took part to connect with his son who stays in New York,” Bellin said.

Kathryn McKenzie, a journalist from Monterey County who was participating in NaNoWriMo, said the project was a great opportunity for writers to succeed in producing their very own book.

“As a writer, I sometimes doubt myself … but the aim of NaNoWriMo is to just go for it and get to the word count regardless of whether it’s good or not,” McKenzie said.

NaNoWriMo participants make use of forums on the project’s official website to discuss ideas and give feedback and advice to fellow novelists. Writers are expected to upload their work for online verification before the deadline of 11:59:59 p.m. on Nov. 30.

“Once you submit your story, you receive a coupon code for Vanity Press. They then print your novel and bind it for you, so you have a copy to keep with you forever,” Bellin said.

According to its website, in 2011 NaNoWriMo had 256,618 participants, of which 36,843 managed to finish their novels within the stated deadline. For students at the on-campus kickoff event, however, the project was not so much a competition, but rather a motivation for writers to put words to paper.

“In all honesty, I don’t think I’ll finish in time,” said creative writing major Brian Goulart. “But it’s a challenge I’m willing to accept.”

Photo/Illustration by Morgan Grana.

A sea of students will move through the UCSC campus, flowing from college to college, to support the LGBT community this Saturday.

The seventh annual PRIDE event, this year titled Kresge Presents: The Colors of Pride, is a celebration of the queer and allied community at UC Santa Cruz.

Organized by the Kresge Multicultural Education Committee and the PRIDE Committee, the event will feature a campus-wide parade, culminating in a festival held in Kresge Lower Street.

“When you see everyone wearing the same colored shirts, you get this feeling of, ‘Yeah, I’m not alone in this,’” event co-chair and third-year Mark Corre said.

The two-hour march, beginning at noon at Quarry Plaza, will be led by volunteer and first-year student Ryan King. The throng will travel through each of the 10 colleges, picking up more and more students along the way.

PRIDE is the biggest queer-affiliated event on campus, with an estimated attendance of 500 at the festival, which takes place after the parade.

Each college features a unique activity, including a dance at Merrill College and an ice cream social at College Eight. For the first year, Family Student Housing will participate by handing out homemade refreshments to marchers and joining the parade, King said.

Volunteers will distribute free items like shirts and water bottles at each stop.

The march ends at Kresge Plaza at 2 p.m., where the festival begins. There, UCSC student groups like ImPower and community organizations like the Santa Cruz AIDS Project will host activity booths with free face painting and other fun activities.

Aloha Grill and Saturn Café will provide free food, including vegetarian and vegan options.

Committee co-chair and fourth-year literature major and education minor Emily Navas said, “various activities accumulate to the excitement and fun that each person can hope to experience and remember in years to come.”

Performances by UCSC Cheer, Acquire, the Hightones, Slugs in Fishnets, and bands Beaver Fever and Feed Me Jack, among others, will perform throughout the afternoon, Navas said.

The festival will feature a guest speaker, Aurora Guerrero, director of “Mosquita y Mari,” a film about the coming of age of two Chicanas and their intimate friendship. PRIDE collaborated with El Centro to have Guerrero speak at the festival.

“Guerrero’s speech is sure to make a lasting impression at the festival,” Corre said.

Members of the queer and allied community will unite and form a single body of support. Corre said with Family Student Housing’s participation and a new keynote speaker, the growth of PRIDE shows the growth of the queer community at UCSC.

“[PRIDE] connects everyone, no matter who you are,” Corre said. “If you’re queer, if you’re allied, if you’re from a different college — it doesn’t matter. You’re there for one cause.”

Students, faculty and staff gathered to discuss the dire budget situation in light of the recent student occupations. The event was hosted by the Student Union Assembly in an attempt to illuminate opposing viewpoints. Photo by Morgan Grana.

The Kresge Town Hall was filled last Wednesday night with roughly 200 faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students prepared to discuss future tactics in preventing furloughs, fee increases and layoffs similar to those that have ensued this year. The meeting, hosted by the Student Union Assembly (SUA), was held to form a coalition to address the current statewide budget crisis in wake of the last week’s occupation of the Humanities 2 building at UC Santa Cruz.

Victor Sanchez, the external vice chair of SUA and moderator of general assembly, decided to create this event as the first public dialogue on budget issues since the Sept. 24 walkout.

“Being the voice of all undergraduate students, we felt it was necessary to try to bring all sides together,” Sanchez said. “We know that there are people out there who don’t agree with the tactics that are being used and we also know that there are people who have interest in getting involved.”

On the night of Oct. 15, a handful of students affiliated with “Occupy California,” a radical student group that formed to resist budget cuts, barricaded themselves in the Humanities 2 building. The occupation took place after a dance party and was followed by several students damaging school property.

While some feel that illegal action is the best way to resist the budget crisis, others say they would like to be active against the cuts in a different way.

Cowell second-year Caroline Youlios attended the dance and felt that the occupation was ineffective in raising awareness among students.

“The guy in charge was trying to talk about the occupation and raise awareness through a megaphone and the kids at the dance were yelling at him to stop so that they could keep dancing,” Youlios said. “I would think that if students were attending a dance in order to create change, they would at least want to hear about what they are dancing for.”

City councilmember and community studies lecturer Mike Rotkin, who received a pink slip that will terminate his position at UCSC on July 1, hoped the meeting would clear any confusion about the issues facing the university. He also said that attendees should realize that faculty, students and staff are all in this together.

“The low-wage workers on campus don’t want the furloughs to happen and the students don’t want another fee increase, and people in my unit want to decrease the layoffs. If we don’t find some way of realizing what we are doing is a common effort, we are not going to be able to … conquer,” Rotkin said.

At the meeting, a calendar was established to that included dates of future events and ideas to help bring an end to the turmoil from the cuts. Some of the calendar items listed were the Berkeley Mobilizing Conference on Oct. 24, a general strike on May 1, and the Gould commission at UC San Francisco’s Mission Bay Community Center.

Rotkin has faith in the power of people coming together when there is a common force to fight against.

“We have a common enemy here, being the corporate body: the regents — who apparently have very little interest in undergraduate education and serving most of California’s citizens,” Rotkin said.

Sanchez noted that he thinks the reason no one has been able to come to an agreement thus far is because everyone involved in the budget crisis is pinning the blame elsewhere.

“We blame UCOP [the University of California Office of the President] and they blame the legislature,” Sanchez said. “Nobody wants to take responsibility for what is going on, but I think at the end of the day it comes down to the pressure that’s put on specific points that is really going to create creative change, because we are not going to budge.”

Those who attended the meeting agreed to come together in the future to resist the negative impacts from the state.

“You see a lot of emotion and energy behind this,” Sanchez said, “because the budget cuts are chopping away at a lot of people’s futures.”

The garden at Kresge is maintained by students. A new independent study course has expanded participation in the garden co-op. Photo by Rosario Serna.

It was Voltaire’s Candide who told us “we must cultivate our garden.” 

Those who started the Kresge Garden Co-op listened.

Just outside the east fences of the garden, a brilliantly colored “Viva la Compost” sign can be read next to heaps of fresh soil and brown manure, reflecting the organic and self-sufficient manner in which the co-op manages its garden. A myriad of vegetables and fruits grow there, including cabbage, garlic, onions, carrots, plums, peaches and spinach.

Kresge College recently began offering a two-credit independent study course that focuses on expanding and improving the quality of the garden. Since the inception of the course, the garden has thrived, thanks to eager and involved students who enrolled in the spring session.

Ryan Abelson, a Kresge gardener and second-year environmental studies major, now serves as a TA for the class. Abelson has seen the garden grow tremendously in the last two years.

“In the beginning, there wasn’t that much formal structure. It used to just be Kresge students to themselves, self-maintained,” Abelson said. “The co-op has been a lab, where we can bring in new kids of all ages. We have staff, parents, little kids, [and] students from all colleges. We all make it happen.”

Abelson commented on the growth of the co-op since the beginning of the class last spring quarter.

“When I took the class there were around 10 to 15 people,” he said. “Now there are around 20 to 25 people. The class is really hands-on — you’re digging, planting, weeding.”

Abelson said that the class teaches important lessons to students.

“We want to teach people ways to be self-sufficient,” Abelson said. “We’re not focused on production, but rather education and awareness. It’s all about the community. We use the resources here to educate people — and feed people too.”

The Kresge Garden Co-op also prides itself on its organic production standards.

“We only support farmers who buy seeds,” Abelson said. “We don’t support genetic modification.”

Kresge gardening class instructor Dave Shaw first discovered the garden as a student in 2004. 

After joining the UCSC faculty in 2008, he started teaching the class and has since seen what he considers to be “tremendous” growth.

“Since the beginning of the co-op, we have doubled the amount of beds and bed space, we have strengthened the relationship between the garden co-op and the food co-op at Kresge, and we are beginning to offer services to other groups that have invited us to collaborate,” Shaw said. “The garden co-op is now thriving. It’s like a garden renaissance out there.”

Shaw emphasized the importance of the students in enabling the garden to thrive.

“The students are running this co-op, and that’s super empowering,” Shaw said. “We’re building a really strong community, and it’s working. People are learning these skills and running with them.

Bodhi Crandall, a third-year environmental studies and economics major from Cowell, said he is grateful for Shaw and the garden.

“It’s been really great because Dave [Shaw] takes a lot of the time to build community and teach us everything,” he said. “[The garden] is a nice demonstration of organic procedure.”

Shanin Arianna, a second-year philosophy major at Kresge, is part of the two-credit independent study with the co-op. Though Arianna is new to gardening, he said that the experience has been very worthwhile.

“I have a lot of fun doing it,” Arianna said. “You don’t have to think about much while you [garden]. It’s really beautiful out here.”

Abelson said it is important to expand the skills learned in the garden to other places.

“We want people to come, cultivate plants, and outsource them,” Abelson said. “Only so much focus can go into this.”

Besides cultivating their own garden, students working in the Kresge garden have hopes for other colleges, like Oakes and Porter, to create co-ops of their own.

“We’re going to Oakes and to Porter and expanding,” Shaw said. “It just shows that what we’re doing is really working. We’re cultivating the good life.”