By Bridget Johnston || News Editor
This month, Franklin & Marshall’s Philadelphia Alumni Writers House welcomed its newest hire, Alex Faccibene ’16. She returns to the Writers House to work as their newest part-time house coordinator.
As house coordinator, Faccibene works closely with professors Kerry Sherin Wright and Joanna Underhill to ultimately fulfill the Writers House motto, “inspires, teaches, feeds.” Faccibene describes the Writers House as a “space for hosting visiting writers, artists, poets and more.” They also host a number of student publications and work with professors from different departments to organize events and host classes.
Faccibene was a Creative Writing major and French minor at F&M. She was also president of the Quidditch team, and served on the Emerging Writers Festival student committee. She’s currently reading The Devourers, by F&M alumnus, Indra Das.
The house coordinator position opened up during the fall of 2015, and while Faccibene was interested at the time, she could not formally commit to the job because she was preparing to study at the NYU Summer Publishing Institute. However, she was excited to accept the position upon completing the summer program.
Faccibene explains, “I missed working for Kerry and Jo and was very excited to come back to Lancaster to work with them again.”
Faccibene worked at the Writers House throughout her senior year as a student employee, and during that time she took over as coordinator for the Creative Writers Corps (CWC), a student volunteer group focused on bringing creative writing to local elementary and middle school classrooms. Prior to working for the Writers House, she volunteered for the CWC program and taught several creative writing classes. As coordinator, she led the group’s weekly meetings, created lesson plans, and encouraged critical thinking about what it means to be a writer.
Although she has far more responsibility in her new position, Faccibene explains, “It’s interesting to come back so soon after graduating and seeing everything from the faculty perspective. I appreciate the chance to be more involved in who [the Writers House] brings to campus and getting the chance to work so closely with Kerry and Jo while being a part of an organization that meant so much to me when I was a student.”
Faccibene is currently working on revitalizing several of the student publications, such as Epilogue, the student-led literary magazine, and Plume, a student run travel journal, whose last issue was released in 2013. She says, “so many freshmen have expressed interest in contributing, so we at the Writers House are trying to make a push to bring [these publications] back.”
Faccibene is also working with students to create a writing workshop group for individuals looking for a place to share their current creative projects and receive feedback from their peers. While details are still being finalized, the first meeting will be November 9 at 7 p.m. and they intend to meet most Wednesdays.
Junior Bridget Johnston is the News Editor. Her email is bjohnsto@fandm.edu.