“I’m starting a magazine, D.”
The conversation began with this, Ken tossing a concept at me in a smoke-choked Irish pub in Morgantown, West Virginia. Not just a magazine, though – an online literary journal complete with purple frames. And he looked pretty damned serious about it, too. I took a draw from my cigar and shifted into the corner of one of McClafferty’s booths. In what could best be described as his puckish expression, Ken leaned forward onto the table, smiled, and quickly raised his eyebrows in a way that would make most fathers uneasy if he were looking at their 16-year-old daughters. “Well, Jesus,” I bit. “So tell me about this magazine.”
Nearly three years after that conversation, Connotation Press has become one of the world’s foremost online literary publications. I’m honored to now be a member of this tremendous editorial staff and ecstatic to be able to officially announce that this month marks the re-launch of the Undergraduate Writing column. We’re starting out with a bang, too. Featured in this March issue are Travis Green and Matti Miller, two contributors who complement this column’s purpose – to showcase talented, up-and-coming writers.
- Travis Green, a senior at North Carolina State University, has provided a grip of poems that delve into multi-layered emotions and themes. Narrative in nature and mature in content, his work forces readers away from that which is comfortable with an often raw poetic voice.
- “About Writing” is a piece written by Matti Miller, a senior at Waynesburg University, which confronts essay-writing “rules” that many of us will remember being taught in English classes from the 6th-grade onward. She relies upon humor and a biting wit to break away from tradition and illustrate how writing against convention can be, and often is, more effective than conformity.
I’d also like to acknowledge and thank my editorial assistants, Faith Kline and Bryan Foley, for their work in helping to restart the column and begin the process of getting word out to English programs throughout the country of the publishing opportunity Connotation Press offers for undergraduate writers.
With that, let’s plunge into the Undergraduate Writing Column. I’m excited for the two talented writers we’re able to publish this month and equally thrilled to see what lies ahead.
Dave Beighley
Editor – Undergraduate Writing Column