This is an interesting article by New Pages on the importance of the 2-Year College Literary Magazine (thanks to Dorothee of Blue Print Review for pointing this out).
There are as many reasons to publish a topical magazine as there are reasons to write. For some larger institutions, it may bring in some bucks–though nowhere close to what a good ball team can bring in. Then again, editors aren’t paid college coach salaries either. Then again, the article doesn’t overlook the small college as a source worth scouting:
“Maybe it’s time we started paying attention to what’s going on outside of the literary bubble, so we can see some of the raw talent of writers who aren’t afraid to experiment.”
There is the real and honest effort to showcase literature and the arts as a path of cultural and intellectual excellence. There is a purpose to simply encourage students by showcasing their work and firing an interest that may have lain dormant or repressed. And sometimes, it’s used as a handout to impress alumni and others in hopes of donations.
“Community college students are non-traditional – so you have this whole crop of writers from incredibly diverse backgrounds,” says John Dermot Woods, faculty advisor for Luna, the student-run literary magazine published at Nassau Community College in New York. “The possibility of finding something there, something raw, something that isn’t out of a polished school of literature or thinking, is a really wonderful thing.”
I went to a small community college, Tunxis in Farmington, CT, and encouraged by a faculty member, planned, edited, and physcially published a small, hot off the xerox, literary magazine called “otto” that was eventually brought to the board and given some funding to allow production of a slick, color-photo magazine published annually. Community colleges are not luckily taken up by the strict focus on sports and are more open to all aspects of learning, English and grammar being an important element of that learning.
And some grow to become a very important element of the college:
“We weren’t content to be a small literary journal and just publish our students,” says Bart Edelman, the editor of Eclipse, a Glendale College literary magazine that went national in 2000. Eclipse reserves about 15-20% of the magazine for student work. “I thought it was really important to do something greater and to allow our students to have that unusual opportunity to be part of a national literary landscape. We wanted to see if we could have the best of both worlds.”
The article goes on to note that small college publications face the same problems of other publishing houses and large university presses, looking for a readership supportive enough to justify the expenses when cost-cutting comes around. It’s an excellent read and I’m happy that New Pages and writer Jessica Powers took the time to delve into this.
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