Instress staff members are busy at work selecting content for this year’s edition of the 45-year-old campus literary magazine.
Two of the magazines litera- ture editors, senior Andrew Corbett and junior John Meholic, are wading through literary submissions, prose and poetry, and grading each piece with a rubric.
“If opinions are mixed we will talk about it, what we thought was good and what we thought wasn’t good,” Corbett said. If the piece has an overall good grading after discussion, editors select it for publication.
Photography editor and junior Heather Marsicano is evaluating photography. Mar- sicano rates the photographs and decides which ones make the cut.
“I think I’m a little bit of a snot about it, but I have a degree in photography so I feel like this is kind of my forte,” Marsicano said. She uses a letter grading system of A to F, and the overall quality and grading of each photograph determines whether it will run, she said.
Junior Matt Wielgopolski is this year’s chief layout de- signer. Wielgopolski’s job is to take all approved content and lay it out in the magazine’s format.
Wielgopolski said the magazine is full color, stan- dard eight-by-eleven inch size. There is no set limit for the magazine’s length. He said he is using Adobe Creative Suite InDesign, a page layout program. “It’s going to take a
lot of coffee, a lot of sleepless nights, and a lot of hours in MEZ5,” Wielgopolski said.
The staff believes the hard work is worth it—and they hope to garner some publicity. Editors will select the best of each category—prose, poetry, artwork, and photography— and choose the best of each category based on a 10-point grading scale. The staff nar- rows the winners by rounds until they pick the top four. Winners are awarded with $50 or $100 prizes, and they will present their work at the “Journey Through the Arts” ceremony.
Simko said he would like to hold a cover-to-cover read- ing of the magazine, possibly in the Blacktop Lounge. “I’m going to get as many people as I can to join us, and literally read the magazine cover-to- cover,” Simko said.
The staff hopes these events will help increase the maga- zine’s profile. “I hope it grows. Misericordia isn’t necessarily known for its arts, but there are a lot of talented people on campus,” Meholic said.
Corbett is also pushing for an online issue to make it more accessible to the campus community. Marsicano hopes the magazine will someday be printed in hardcover.
The staff encourages others to join the publication. If students want to get involved Wielgopolski said to look for informational flyers around campus or on e-MU for Miseri- Minute. Simko added anyone can email him personally or [email protected] if they are interested in joining.