I'm a privileged guy. Really. I am. I've been gifted the opportunity to create and run this magazine; I'm writing, directing, and producing documentary films; and I teach at Waynesburg University in Pennsylvania. And to tell you the truth, depending on the day I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite.

 

Recently, I was honored to be asked by the Chair of my department, Joonna Trapp, to help create classes for a Business and Professional writing track we're developing. I tossed around a couple of ideas finally offering to teach something we ended up calling, "The Arts Magazine: Editing and Publishing".

 

I'd recently been thinking a lot about colleges that for whatever reason, most likely related to funding, do not have a literary magazine. I had this idea that we could offer a class in which the students created a smaller version of Connotation Press: An Online Artifact complete with  poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, etc., sections--basically all the columns we run every month. We'd offer this opportunity to any school out there without a magazine and see if we got any takers.

 

Admittedly, I had grad students in mind when the idea first came to me, and Waynesburg has no graduate program in creative writing. Further, Waynesburg has a top-notch undergraduate literary magazine: The Muse & Stone. But Joonna and I were excited by the idea and we offered it this past semester as a special topics course to our undergrads. Ten brave souls, largely made up of communications, business, and creative writing majors, signed up for the class and we were off and running. And boy did we ever run!

 

Natalie Bruzda, an outstanding and talented student, agreed to be our Student Editor-in-Chief and we were on our way. By the time the semester was over, the students had created a poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, entertainment review, and music column, and a team of them even shot two interviews and a 30 minute documentary film. And this film ROCKS! Seriously, check it out.

To say I was blown away by the hard work and raw ability of my students at Waynesburg would be a vast understatement. I got the opportunity to see them push the boundaries of their own comfort zones well past anything I expected; wrestle with the pros and cons of soliciting work; stare down the fear of interviewing artists in both written and video form, and hammer out the logistic tragedies of running a film shoot.  And they did this knowing full well the work they'd do would be read by folks all around the world. They stared down that fear, too.

 

It is my opinion that this experiment was a great success. And now we offer it to you. If you teach in a program without a literary magazine, specifically a graduate program as it was exceptionally difficult for my graduating undergrads to find time to get both the magazine and their final classes completed while stressing about the impending need for a job looming on the horizon (but boy did they ever!), we're here to help. You can offer this as a class or an after-class project--that part's up to you. But we'll provide the venue. Simple as that.

 

I can be reached at [email protected], and I truly hope some of you take advantage of this offer. It was an amazing experience, and one we hope you'll give to your kids.

 

And now, without further ado (what the hell is an ado?), let's kick this pig and flood the carbs!

 

Because my blog has ran rather long already, and because our service provider crashed our site for three hours (another RESCUE by our web designer John Turi!) I'll just list the columns and provide links to all the artists this time. I'm sure you'll not miss the flashy language. Ha!

 

Natalie's special guest: Bob Randolph (poems and a video interview)

Cassie's guests: Michael Blumenthal (poems and a video interview), Matthew London, Steve Shilling, Martin Cockroft, Kenneth Nicholson.

Mattie's guests: Len Kuntz (flash fiction and a written interview), Jonnell Liebl, Britt Saunders.

Jordan's guests: Jill Moyer Sunday (story and a written interview), Jessie Carty, Sarah Hulyk, Renee Wiltrout, Jonnell Liebl.

Casey Zell et. al,: MJ Walen: Fashion Designer. A 30 minute documentary film.

Kyle's guests: Joonna Smitherman Trapp, Sarah Wheeler.

Lauren Rearick & Emily Ellis: Music Reviews and Interviews

 

John's guests: Brian Barker (with interview), Martha Collins, Beth Gylys, Monica A Hand, Ravi Shankar & Terri Witek, Lea Graham, Cathryn Hankla, Bill Griffin, and Charity Gingerich.

 

Amanda's guests: Doug Van Gundy, Kathryn Stripling Byer, Carly Sachs, Llewellyn McKernan.

 

Joshua's guest: Julia Gregory

 

 

 

Book Review: Panic, by Laura McCullough. Reviewed by Monica Mankin & Kaite Hillenbrand

 

And finally, our fiction & creative nonfiction teasers for our June, 2011 issue are from fiction, Jessica Keener and from creative nonfiction Richard Goodman. And please don't miss our mid-month post on the 15th!

 

Thank you to Joonna Trapp, Waynesburg University, and the brilliant students from "The Arts Magazine: Editing and Publishing" for all the hard work they put in to making their posts sing. And thanks to all our editorial staff. You guys rock! From the entire Connotation Press family we wish you a safe and relaxing summer filled with good friends, good food, and as much travel as possible.

 

Connotation Press: The Children Are Now Working As If I Did Not Exist