ESF Students Launch Online Literary Journal

12/07/2015

ESF has launched the inaugural edition of a student-produced online literary journal, "unearthed."

"unearthed" is produced by undergraduate student editors working in collaboration with the ESF Writing Program and ESF Office of Communications. The journal focuses on works that define the environment as what Glen Mazis, a published poet and professor of philosophy at Penn State, calls "surround" – the natural and social world that species share.

The journal publishes work in the genres of non-fiction, fiction, poetry and art. Students from any academic department are invited to submit their work for publication, especially in areas of new media and those that blend genres, such as photo and video essays. The launch was celebrated Dec. 1 at a campus reception attended by more than 70 people.

"We hope to honor the legacy of ESF's original print creative journal, 'Ecologue,' said Dr. Kurt Stavenhagen, an ESF lecturer and interim director of the college Writing Program. "As such, the idea of the journal is to give voice and publishing experience to undergraduate students."

Stavenhagen serves as executive editor of "unearthed" and teaches EWP 496 Digital Editing and Publishing, a class that makes "unearthed" its main project and wherein each student edited a submission and helped design the layout for its web publication. The student editors were Colette McDonald, Yocasta Pichardo, Thomas Hartman, Terrance Caviness, Fareya Zubair, Hunter Longenberger, Christopher Strait, Casey Saslawsky, Stephanie Williams, Kimberly Mansfield, Bethani Lester, Cassandra Beaulieu and Emma Aversa.

A new edition of "unearthed" is expected to be produced each semester.