by Dilara Yarbrough
“Some people go all four years without knowing what the Grinnell Review is,” said co-editor Vanessa Gennarelli, ’05. “We’ve changed the magazine this semester to really reflect the student body… We just really wanted to change it up, make it a little edgier,” she said.
This semester’s issue of the Grinnell Review, Grinnell College’s literary magazine, “is gonna be punk as fuck,” said Gennarelli. She explained that both the content and design of this magazine will be “a little edgier” than past issues of the Grinnell Review. Co-editor Liz Allen, ‘04 said that the layout editor had a “clear artistic vision,” with a black cover and new design for pages. “It’s going to look very cool.” said co-editor Skye Hibbard, ‘04.
One of the biggest changes in the organization of the Grinnell Review is in the review committee, a group of student volunteers who meet to review and evaluate submissions. Last year, the review committee reviewed submissions electronically and submitted numerical ratings. This year, the review committee meets twice before the publication of each issue, which Gennarelli said fostered a “sense of community among those people that were interested in writing” and gave more time for pieces to be reviewed. “If you rush through 80 pieces in one night, each one doesn’t receive individual attention,” she explained.
The Grinnell Review’s new approach emphasizes learning through dialogue with a community of writers and artists. “The whole point is to improve writing,” said Hibbard. Now, the review committee offers constructive criticism to every writer who submits to the Grinnell Review.
Writer John Richards ’06 appreciated receiving a critique of his work after submitting to the Grinnell Review. The critique of my work was helpful… It gave me a lot to think about,” he said.
Editors have also changed the requirements for members of the Review committee, who can apply for unpaid positions at the beginning of the semester. “Instead of it being completely arbitrary, people that apply to be on the review committee had to actually critique a poem as part of their application,” said Gennarelli.
This new requirement functions “to make sure that people would be able to articulate” critiques of submitted work, said Allen.
Although the committee critiques all work, nothing is edited or excised from any submission. The review committee censors nothing and does not restrict content as long as members think that a submission has artistic merit. The upcoming issue is a good example: Hibbard suggested that because of the themes of sex and religion found throughout the magazine, “We should call it the Madonna issue … It’s a scandalous issue. Everyone should read it.”
“If you like Christ or sex you should read the Grinnell Review,” said Gennarelli.
Students and community members will have a chance to peruse “the Madonna issue” next Tuesday, Dec. 9, at 8 p.m. in the Forum South Lounge. Writers whose work is published in this issue of the Grinnell review will be reading their poems and excerpts of short fiction in what Gennarelli said will be “a release party for the magazine.” In addition, artwork published in the magazine will be displayed.
Hibbard said that writers’ and artists’ presentations of their work often enrich her understanding of it. “There’s something really cool about rather than just reading a two dimensional text on a page with no sound, to hear the actual artists read their work, or have the artist standing by their painting talking about it,” Hibbard said, “I don’t always understand pieces right away and when I get some more background information or talk to the artist, a lot of times I appreciate it a lot more.”
“One of the aims of the Grinnell Review this semester was to really construct a literary community. We really wanted people to feel like there was a creative outlet if you were interested in doing this, and the Grinnell Review reading is the icing on that cake,” said Gennarelli, “Not only is it the collection of the accepted writers, but it’s your peers. There’s something really satisfying about knowing that there is a creative writing community on campus.”
For the editors, the release and reading of the Grinnell Review will serve as a celebration of the creative process. “The metaphor that I would like to use is Skye, Liz and I kind of give birth to this in a collective way,” said Gennarelli. “It starts from nothing, perhaps a few zygotes of pieces, but they all come together and then we arrange them in the magazine and its kind of a mystery because we don’t know what its going to look like, and then it comes. And it’s like our little child.”
“So if the Review is the product of our birthing process, then the Review reading would be our baby shower,” said Hibbard. “I think we should send out baby shower invitations. Our baby has finally arrived!”
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