Students at Cosumnes River College shared their published work at a reading of the seventh annual Cosumnes River Journal on May 7.

Family, friends, students and faculty gathered in BS 129 to share the published poetry, short stories and photographs while a handful of students took to the lecture floor and read their work to the audience.

“It’s a celebration of students, all of their work, all of their creativity and the energy that they bring to the classroom that culminates in them being published,” said English professor David Weinshilboum.

Weinshilboum called himself the “front man” of the journal but gave credit to his many colleagues who helped pull it all together.

“We have an editorial board made up of many members of not just the English department but members of the campus community,” Weinshilboum said. “Students, faculty, we had a librarian this year, all just pitching in saying ‘hey, we want to print out a really great product that celebrates creativity.’”

Some students had multiple works published in this issue of the journal, including Gospel Cruz, a 21-year-old small business and entrepreneurship major. This is the first time that her work has been published.

“I’m quite honored to be considered worthy enough to be put in the journal,” Cruz said. “I was kind of surprised to have a couple of my pieces and one of my photographs published, it feels good.”

There were a few students in attendance that were required to attend as a part of their creative writing class.

“Everybody did very well,” said Cole Martin, a 22-year-old English major. “I was a little jealous of Gospel because I submitted a bunch of pieces that weren’t published but she had three stories.”

Some of the pieces published were inspired by the life experiences of the author, which created some moving moments for those in attendance.

Eugene Le, 24, a bio science major, wrote a short story titled “Scarred for Life.” In it he wrote about his experience with a brain injury after being involved in a motor vehicle accident.

Le suggested that people “wear helmets” in an effort to avoid any serious injury such as that which he suffered.

College president Deborah Travis and vice president of instruction and student learning Whitney Yamamura were in attendance, showing their support to the students and faculty that put together the seventh publication of the CRJ.

Ginny McReynolds, dean of humanities and social sciences spoke to the audience before the student readings began to commend Weinshilboum and his efforts.

“Despite Heather’s good ideas and everybody’s work this would not have happened without David Weinshilboum,” McReynolds said.

Ultimately it was the work of the students involved that made the CRJ a success.

“I’m really so grateful for all of you for participating, this is what education at CRC is all about really, giving students the opportunity to work together on something that is a tangible product,” McReynolds said. “Every time this comes out I go home in awe of the writing that I’ve read and heard.”