Tallahassee, Florida: warm weather, citrus trees, humidity, Spanish moss, and easy access to the beach. It’s lovely—truly—but occasionally I miss autumnal weather, the kind that makes you want to curl up with a book and a mug of hot tea.

I think a lot of other members of the Rho Epsilon chapter of Sigma Tau Delta at Florida State University feel the same way. And while we can’t magically conjure those chilly evenings, our chapter aims to recreate that feeling of literary coziness for our membership. Thus, book club was born.

Book club began in fall 2023, a passion project implemented by our chapter President, Kennedy Lora Stepongzi. She proposed meeting every other week to discuss excerpts from Annihilation by local author and former Sigma Tau Delta Convention Speaker Jeff VanderMeer. We expected about ten participants; instead, we had over thirty regulars. In fact, participants were so excited to know how the book ended, discuss literature outside of the classroom, and socialize with fellow Sigma Tau Deltans that we started meeting every week instead.

That first semester of book club was a learning experience. One of our challenges was ensuring that everyone had access to the book; our local and campus libraries simply did not have enough copies for all participants. Similarly, we worked from multiple editions, so trying to analyze specific passages required extra time to get everyone on the (literal) same page.

This is where Sigma Tau Delta comes in.

With a generous Chapter Service Project Grant, we could provide all participants with a copy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, which was voted book-club pick for spring 2024 in a landslide. (I take this as further proof that as Floridians, we were excited to imagine chilly gothic landscapes as escapism from the brutal heat.)

Book club read the novel over the course of six weeks, meeting on Wednesdays after dark to discuss about forty pages at a time. (After meetings, we invited members to stay and help sort books from our Better World Book Drive, a fundraiser that will help us sustain book club for future semesters.) As capstone to the book club, we offered two events:

1. A movie night to watch the 2018 film adaptation of the novel
2. A “Gothic Literature Workshop”

I organized the Gothic Literature Workshop much like speed-dating. Participants spent fifteen minutes at each of the four tables before rotating to the next, and each table was staffed by a graduate student who explored the intersection of the gothic with their area of expertise. For example, I write and teach the genre of creative nonfiction, so at my table, we read short excerpts from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt (a book of literary journalism) and In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (a memoir), both of which make use of gothic aesthetics. Then, I asked students to respond to a quick prompt: “Create a list of places you’ve moved through—settings, in other words—wherein you’ve felt wonder or terror—or both at the same time.”

While I designed the workshop primarily so that our undergraduate participants could experience the gothic across genres and leave with ideas for new writing projects, I was also mindful of the graduate student table hosts, who, like me, are preparing for careers in academia and seeking opportunities to professionalize. At the workshop, each graduate student had free reign over their table’s activities and handouts. Overall, I think the event gave graduate and undergraduate students the rare chance to work together outside of the traditional classroom.

It would be remiss of me not to mention that our Chapter Service Project Grant also enabled us to provide a tea bar at our meetings: an electric kettle, insulated cups, honey, sugar cubes, and different herbal teas. After all, there’s nothing quite like reading and discussing gothic fiction while enjoying a mug of hot tea.

Gwen Niekamp
Chapter Service Project Grant Recipient, 2024
Rho Epsilon Chapter
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL

Chapter Service Project Grants

Application Window: October 21 – November 11, 2024, 4:00 p.m. CT

Sigma Tau Delta’s Chapter Service Project Grants are designed to encourage local chapters to be innovative in developing projects that further the vision and goals of the Society. The Society will award a limited number of grants, for no more than $500 each, to support local chapter activities. Funds may be requested for separate projects or for parts of larger projects, and chapters should explore ways to use Service Project Grants in combination with funds secured from other sources. Funds may be requested for ongoing projects, but there is no guarantee that projects funded during one grant period will receive funding in future grant periods.

More Chapter Service Project Grant Reports

Little Libraries, Big Dreams with a Chapter Service Project Grant
Project Grant: Collaborating with Imagination to Support Literacy in Cuyahoga County
Book Banning and Minority Communities
Service Project Grant: Little Free Library
Launching Lit Week: Celebrating Literature with a Project Grant
Honoring Writing and the Creative Arts with a Project Grant
Ravens and RiverMead Read!
When Words Come to Life
Leo’s Little Free Library
Online Tutoring Partnership
Restocking the Military Resource Center’s Lending Library
Writing Contest for Secondary Schools
Poetry Fest
AuthorShip! Writing Contest
Little Free Library
Common Reader Community Discussion
English Careers Event