Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the May print edition but remains relevant despite its delayed online publication.
“Mathematics and Science” might be in its title, but MSMS has flourishing liberal arts programs, as evidenced by the Scholastic Awards won by students, the Mississippi Philological Conference held on campus, and the school’s student-run literary magazine, Southern Voices.
MSMS’s Creative Writing class takes writing and art submissions from students and creates the annual Southern Voices from the best of them. Although the process is largely student-run, creative writing teacher Thomas Richardson has overseen and guided the curation of the publication for years.
“The magazine is open to students across the whole school, even if they aren’t in creative writing or art classes. If they have writing, they can submit it,” Richardson said. “The number of pieces in each category that end up in the magazine varies every year, depending on how many submissions we get in each category.”
Southern Voices accepts poems, drawings, paintings, photography, short stories, and creative nonfiction essays. The creative writing students anonymously rank the submitted pieces before sending the highest-ranked works to professional judges to determine their place in the magazine.
“[Southern Voices] takes two main things into consideration: we want the highest quality writing submitted, and we want to represent the student body,” Richardson said. “We get a lot of submissions from our [students in the] Creative Writing class, but we make sure there are plenty of pieces from other students.”
Southern Voices junior editor Savannah Massey said she had wanted to do creative writing since she was in kindergarten, and Richardson’s class has given her an outlet for her creativity.
“Having an actual creative writing class has helped my writing get 10 times better,” Massey said. “Mr. Richardson has been very helpful with writing, and he’s just a really fun teacher.”
Richardson said his approach to teaching creative writing is to encourage students to take risks and try new things.
“Students shouldn’t think of creative writing as a skill you already need to have developed, but as a pursuit you can start now and learn,” Richardson said.
Students can register for the Creative Writing class as juniors or seniors. To register as a senior, students do not need to have taken it as a junior.
Massey said she looks forward to taking the Creative Writing class as a senior.
“I’m going to try and be a senior editor,” Massey said. “[Southern Voices] is very student-led, and a lot of participation goes into it.”
Theo Hummer said the programs done by the English faculty are rich and rewarding.
“The massive participation Mr. Richardson gets in Southern Voices and the Creative Writing class every year speaks strongly to the kind of teacher he is and the interest MSMS students have in writing,” Theo Hummer said.
Hummer, along with multiple other MSMS teachers, spoke at the Mississippi Philological Association conference MSMS hosted on March 1–2. The MPA is a professional organization of scholars who meet at different Mississippi universities every year for a conference filled with literature and language-related seminars and events.
“Having the association meet here speaks to how admirably active Mr. Richardson is in keeping MSMS connected to the larger literary community,” Hummer said. “It’s amazing that all those writers and scholars came here to talk and all the students got a chance to come and listen.”
Richardson has been a member of the MPA since he first started teaching in 2014.
“This year, the association was in need of a host, so I asked if they’d be opposed to having the event at MSMS,” Richardson said. “They were glad to have a place to meet.”
This was the first time the MPA conference has been hosted by a high school instead of a university, allowing MSMS teachers to attend without missing a day of work.
“It was very convenient to be able to talk to all these professors and writers without leaving Columbus,” Hummer said. “I knew nothing about the Philological Association until I started my PhD program, so I think it’s really neat that our students are getting a chance to learn about it earlier. They get to see what the professional literary field looks like.”
Along with the faculty, several MSMS students spoke at the conference, including Massey.
“We had a meeting of the Southern Voices editors where Mr. Richardson told us about the [MPA conference]. He told us some students could speak, and he said, ‘Y’all better speak; I’ve been hyping you up!’ He picked four or five of us, and we gathered poems, dressed up nicely and went,” Massey said. “It was a really cool experience.”
At the MPA conference, Massey read three of her poems.
“If I didn’t have a place to work on my creative writing like I do here, I wouldn’t have spoken at the conference, and I wouldn’t have won any awards either,” Massey said.
Along with other MSMS students, Massey won awards for her submissions to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards earlier this year. The state-level Scholastic Awards are judged by a partnership between Scholastic and the Eudora Welty Foundation.
“This year, our students did really well [in the competition],” Richardson said. “We had 22 students win something, and of those 22, they won a total of 60 awards. Eleven of those 22 students won a Gold Key award, meaning that their piece will move on to the national competition. We also had four students nominated for the American Voices award, one of the highest awards Scholastic offers, out of five total nominations across the state.”
Massey won four Gold Key awards, one Silver Key award and five honorable mentions.
“I was really hoping to win something, but that many awards was a surprise,” Massey said. “I think I submitted 26 total pieces.”
If any student wins the Gold Key award at the national level, they are invited to a ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York City. However, due to delays in the judging process, this event might not happen this year. Still, Richardson said MSMS’s performance this year is remarkable.
“This year, MSMS students have won the most awards of any year since I’ve been here,” Richardson said. “There are some incredibly talented writers who have poured a lot of work into their pieces, and I think they have a good chance to win at the national level.”
Hummer said MSMS’s success in the Scholastic Awards showcases the talent of the students and the environment supporting them.
“There are great opportunities here for people who care about the humanities, and [these opportunities are] not just in our English department,” Hummer said. “I mean, at what other school in Mississippi can you take Russian and German or participate in something like Tales from the Crypt? At what other school could you take Intro to Philosophy or History of Science?”
According to the English faculty, this liberal arts education is complimented by the other studies offered at MSMS.
“I think that all of the faculty here are doing amazing, enriching, and creative things,” Hummer said. “Everybody is showcasing the reasons why their disciplines make them passionate, and I know that it inspires students. I feel really lucky to work with Mr. Richardson and Dr. Easterling in the English department. The only improvement I could imagine is the addition of a fourth teacher. Like Dr. Easterling says, ‘I don’t think there’s a thing wrong with this school that couldn’t be solved with money.’”
Richardson believes the influence of other subjects helps enhance the students’ learning experience.
“The environment of the school has always been one that supports independent scholarship in STEM as well as the humanities,” Richardson said. “I am a really firm believer in the idea that our students excel because they are exposed to a variety of subjects.”
Hummer said students have a chance at MSMS to discover new skills and interests they might not otherwise have the same exposure to.
“I went here as a student; this was my high school,” Hummer said. “Back then, I had no idea that I wanted to study English. I was really interested in math and physics. If you had asked me, I would have said I [wanted to] major in physics, but the lessons that I learned from the English department here are the ones I think about and use every day.”
“People get distracted by the name of the school and make a lot of assumptions about what we do. But we offer, without a doubt, a true liberal arts education,” Richardson added. “An education that is only improved by all the other classes and studies MSMS offers.”
