Literary magazines offer best of student art

By: Alex Vockroth

Posted: 5/1/08

Between classes, research and exams, many Hopkins students still find time to cultivate their creative sides. Perhaps the best showcase of the diverse talents of the student body is the literary magazines.

The University's oldest lit mag, Zeniada, and its newest, Thoroughfare, are set to print their spring issues in the next week. This year both lit mags will include video and music contributions in addition to poetry and prose.

Hopkins's oldest lit mag, Zeniada has brought the best of student art to campus for over 40 years. Since the beginning the staff has had one preponderant goal in mind: to make the humanities side of Hopkins more visible.

Though it's been around for a while, Zeniada doesn't show its age, as the staff consistently strives to keep it up to date. "This year we've added the video aspect to our magazine," said senior Sue In Lee, this year's editor-in-chief. "Because we've put our magazine online, we now have the ability to put up video works or color pictures."

Expanding to the Web created a lot more work, but Zeniada was up to the challenge, forming a staff that is triple the size of last year's.

The magazine's team is also working hard to heighten Zeniada's presence on campus by holding readings and connecting humanities professors with students.

Things are looking bright for the future of Zeniada, but the staff has had its share of hardships. "We did have somewhat of a withdrawal [of interest] the previous two to three years, but we've revived strongly this year," Lee said.

Part of the problem, she explained, is that students are reluctant to offer the fruits of their creative efforts up for public consumption.

"Many students will write poems, draw or create wonderful pieces of art but are shy to have their worked judged.," Lee said.

Still, Zeniada is published every semester with more or less than 10 selections from each category. In coming years Zeniada editors hope to work with Hopkins's other lit mags to organize an end-of-the-year reading of best pieces published in the magazines.

One of these other publications is Hopkins's newest lit mag, Thoroughfare.

Thoroughfare boasts the title of being the first digital literary magazine at Hopkins. Two years ago six friends decided to embrace the wonders of the digital age and use it to publish their work. Senior and Thoroughfare co-editor Jessica Begans was one of those six pioneers.

"We all wrote fiction, all sought out similar values in writing and all agreed on the vision of what our magazine would look like," she said of the ideas of Thoroughfare's founders.

That vision has come to fruition thanks in large part to a grant from the Digital Media Center that allows the magazine to publish both online and on CDs. This approach brings the idea of the literary magazine into the 21st century, Begans said, because it "enables us to showcase film, music and art alongside the classic literary magazine fare of fiction and poetry."

This year's Thoroughfare team included the addition of several underclassmen. Though their contributions have diversified the content, Begans is the first to admit that collaboration can be a tough obstacle.

"Some of them have different ideas about what makes good fiction and poetry than do the old editors, but we managed to agree on which pieces should go in the magazine," she said.

The work that did end up in the spring edition is a broad, varied sample of the artistic talent at Hopkins. Much of the material is fiction written by Witness Theater participants, a natural transition for these writers. "Obviously a lot of good writers at Hopkins flock to the theater!" Begans said of the contributors.

Music also makes up a portion of the selections in the issue. Senior Liz Eldridge and juniors Adam Lempel and Amit Routh each offered original recordings about such wide-ranging and bizarre topics as country singers, cults and "teeny musicians."

The final product of their hard work is about to hit campus, and the staff is excited to share it with Hopkins. The Web site will be ready for viewing next week, and hardcopies will be widely available on campus. In addition, Thoroughfare is throwing an official launch party at Minás Gallery and Boutique in Hampden.

Look for the spring issues of both Zeniada and Thoroughfare on campus next week and online at http://www.jhu.edu/zeniada and http://webhost5.nts.jhu.edu/thoroughfare.