March
21, 2003 Themes
of Homecoming and Exile to Shape Debut Issue of Nostos
| 
Fred
LeBlanc
(From left) Olivia Bustion ’03, Darcy Whittemore ’03,
and Heidi Dunkelgod ’04 review submissions to the
new literary magazine Nostos. |
Even
while many of nature’s riches lie dormant under layers of
snow on campus, the College’s recital halls, labs, studios,
stages, and classrooms teem with creativity. Olivia Bustion ’03,
Heidi Dunkelgod ’04, and Darcy Whittemore ’03 hope
to tap that creative energy for a spring issue of Nostos,
the new literary magazine they established this year with
support from the English department.
Nostos emerged from the students’ “interest in
experimentation and a desire to create a publishing opportunity
across the disciplines at Mount Holyoke,” says Dunkelgod.
The magazine will include both artistic and scholarly work, and
it will encourage broad involvement by focusing on themes relevant
to many academic areas. “Home” and (its approximate
opposite) “exile” are the themes for the spring 2003
issue of Nostos. The themes inspired the publication’s
title, which comes from Homer’s epic The Odyssey and
means “the story of a homeward journey.”
“Writers can address the themes in a variety of ways,”
says Bustion. “One might decide to approach a topic from
a geopolitical standpoint, offering a journalistic account of
the contemporary nation-state. Another might investigate the relationship
between literature and landscape. Still another might give a literary
treatment of her own home. The possibilities are endless.”
A democratic editorial process makes Nostos as innovative
in structure as it is in content. Rather than following a hierarchical
structure (executive editor, assistant editor, etc.), the Nostos
staff operates as an editorial collective. Submissions are reviewed
and selected by all members. Editing is also done cooperatively,
a process Dunkelgod calls “editing in the round.”
The editors of Nostos invite students to submit papers,
poems, thesis excerpts, photographs, paintings, film stills, and
“any creative interpretations of ‘home and exile’
that can be transformed into print.”
“This is the first student literary magazine in recent MHC
history to be ‘themed’ to a particular topic,”
said Mary Jo Salter, Emily Dickinson Senior Lecturer in the Humanities,
who advises the Nostos staff with Lecturer in English
North Cairn. “Also, it’s unique in that it welcomes
both creative and critical work on the same theme. The terms ‘creative’
and ‘critical’ can be limiting, in that good critical
writing is always creative at some level, and good creative writing
always involves criticism and editing by the author herself, from
the first draft on.”
Salter is also adviser
to Verbosity, the other literary magazine sponsored by
MHC’s English department. Verbosity publishes fiction,
creative nonfiction, poetry, artwork, and photography; it accepted
submissions for its April issue through March 10.
Verbosity’s
editors welcome a second literary publication in the English department.
“Our magazine was founded in the spring of 2001 by a group
of students that wanted a place to publish creative work they’d
been refining both in creative writing classes and on their own,”
says coeditor Kelly Kealy ’03. “We are glad to see
a similar forum for academic work is being forged. Regardless
of genre, topic, or medium, there are really good, engaging things
created at Mount Holyoke that are too often only seen by a student
and her professor. A lot of students are excited about what they’re
learning in classes, and about learning itself; now seems to be
the right time for an interdisciplinary academic journal.”
For more information about Nostos, students may contact
one of its editors: Bustion (ofbustio@mtholyoke.edu
or x4203), Dunkelgod (hmdunkel@mtholyoke.edu
or 256-4795), or Whittemore (dbwhitte@mtholyoke.edu
or x4657). Submissions for the spring 2003 issue of Nostos
are due the week of March 24.
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