After having no venue for student creative writing publication in the English Department for nearly ten years, the inaugural edition of The Black Fork Review resurrected our student-run publication, with a fresh approach. On Friday, April 26, the Review's debut was celebrated with a launch party in Eagles' Landing.
Click here to read The Black Fork Review.
Paige Webb, Administrative Director of the Master of Fine Arts and Managing Editor of Publications at Ashland University, reflects on The Black Fork Review below.
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| Undergraduate Sara Ludwig reading her essay "L’appel du Vide." |
The Black Fork Review is a journal that brings together all of the different branches of Ashland University's creative writing community into one shared space. This includes writers in the Ashland area and far beyond, as it features work not only by Ashland University undergraduates and faculty, but also by MFA students and alumni who live across the nation and yet remain a vital part of our creative writing community.
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| BFR launch party, alumna Joy Gaines-Friedler reading her poem "Vigilance Notes - Sunday." |
At the launch party, located at AU, this connectivity was felt as creative writing undergraduates and alumni of the MFA program ate and chatted and then listened to readings by Black Fork Review authors: undergraduates who were physically present, as well as MFA students and alumni who read by recorded video or audio.
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| Undergraduate Madeline Worcester reading her poem "Apples to Apples." |
The Black Fork Review is a student-run production that merges graduate and undergraduate students: the masthead includes twelve undergraduate editors and three MFA students who serve as lead editors, with one lead editor for each genre--poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. This editorial structure worked well as a mentorship model, giving the MFA students experience leading an editorial team and giving undergraduate students experience collaborating professionally with other editors. What most astonishes me is how rapidly they produced this journal--just shy of two months! It will be exciting to see how this literary journal develops even further in upcoming issues.
Also, in the spirit of community, it is worth noting that none of this would have been possible without support from the English Department, the MFA Program, the Ashland Poetry Press, and the staff in the MFA & Publications Office: Jackson Schultz, Sara Grider, and Jaion Harris. With that support, the editors were able to bring together these contributors’ works to make a remarkable first issue.
