By Parker Barry
“We allow for students’ voices to be heard and expressed via a creative outlet. I think Crosscurrents is successful because the work published references things that students at University of Puget Sound can relate to. Most creative work bridges the gap between the ordinary and the extraordinary, and that’s what Crosscurrents hopes to do,” [YEAR?] Talena Graham, an editor for Crosscurrents literary magazine, said.
Crosscurrents is a student-run literary and art magazine that publishes University of Puget Sound students’ artistic work such as poetry, prose, visual art and music scores. The goal of crosscurrents is to give students the opportunity to showcase their work to the student body as well as have art that is available to students that they might not have access to otherwise.
“All pieces are reviewed by Crosscurrents’ editorial staff, who discuss each submission before voting on whether or not it should be included in the magazine. The staff of Crosscurrents may not necessarily be English majors, or even have that much in common, but they are able to unite and have quality in-depth discussions about literary and art pieces,” Graham said.
The Crosscurrents editorial team goes to great lengths to meticulously choose pieces that would fit well in the magazine. Submissions are separated into sections based on the categories of poetry, prose and visual art. All submissions are made anonymous during the selection process so that staff members do not have a bias towards one of the artists.
“Staff members anonymously rank the piece on a scale from one to three. Rankings are averaged and then the highest-ranked pieces are included in the magazine. The highest-ranked piece from each category is put in a ‘Selected Works’ section, which includes a professor review of the piece,” Graham said.
Wetlands is another student-run literary publication, but the focus of Wetlands is mainly on themes of gender, sexuality, race, class, the body and other social issues Wetlands’ goal as a publication is to create a literary space for artists to express themselves regarding identity and intersectionality.
“We’ve only been around for a few years and we’ve only been an [Associated Students of the University of Puget Sound] media for a year or so now, but since the beginning we’ve been trying to create a space that’s really representative and accessible for the people who need it. It’s definitely evolved a lot,” Natalie Scoggins, an editor for Wetlands and a student at the University of Puget Sound, said.
The selection process for Wetlands is much like the the selection process for Crosscurrents; the pieces are split into different categories and are voted on. Both Wetlands and Crosscurrents rely on collaborative group discussion to choose pieces for their publication.
Wetlands is a unique publication because it exclusively covers sensitive themes that are often seen as taboo. Having a publication such as Wetlands gives artists touching on important subjects a voice. The aim of Wetlands is to provide a magazine that showcases difficult subjects in order to create a self-aware dialogue about University of Puget Sound’s campus dynamics as well as more macro-societal issues that college students are faced with.
Keep an eye out during reading period for the issues of Crosscurrents and Wetlands — grab a copy and support University of Puget Sound’s artists!