Pictured above: the cover for the Mount Holyoke Review’s newest edition.
By Rebecca Gagnon ’23
Staff Writer
Editor’s note: Flannery Langton ’22 and Liz Lewis ’22 are current members of the Mount Holyoke News.
The newest literary magazine at Mount Holyoke, the Mount Holyoke Review, published its first issue on Nov. 12. In celebration, the organization held a publishing party on the same day, during which the editors and founders of the Review spoke and some students read their work aloud.
“We are a place for Mount Holyoke students to submit their writing,” Morgan Sammut ’22, one of the fiction editors of the Review, said. “We mostly do creative works, so a lot of poetry, prose, and we have discussed if we would take essays. We haven’t gotten any of those yet, but we now have things to look forward to.”
The Review currently has a website on Embark which states that the mission of the organization is “to provide a platform for Mount Holyoke College’s diverse voices through creative writing in the form of an annually printed quality literary magazine that will be compiled by the org.”
“Our current goal is working to collect more submissions for this semester and put out a publication in the spring,” Olivia Brandwein ’22, one of the editors-in-chief at the Review, said. “Since we are such a new org, there is so much we want to do and so many things that we definitely want to accomplish. We want to be more engaged in the community with more open mic nights and things like that.”
Over 40 pieces of writing were featured in the first issue. Sammut, being a fiction editor and one of the writers whose work was published, was able to talk a little bit about the process.
“You submit your piece without your name attached,” Sammut explained. “Each piece is put into a Google Drive that we all have access to and each piece is number[ed] so we refer to them by their numbers.”
Sammut shared how every piece then goes into a Google Sheet with its number at the top. The organization reads all of the submissions and gives it a certain color and number. Green is “I love the piece,” yellow is “I am not sure,” and red is “I’m not sure this is right for the issue.” If a piece is also given an average score of seven, then publication of the piece is considered.
“We will be in smaller groups of four people or so, pick a small group of works that we have received and kind of divide and conquer,” Brandwein stated. “We get to talk out any questions or things we really liked about it and have a space to read really great writing and share what we liked or didn’t like.”
The staff of the Review consists of three editors-in-chief: Brandwein, Flannery Langton ’22 and Liz Lewis ’22. Brandwein, Langton and Lewis are also the org’s founders. Brandwein commented that the title they share could be deceiving because they do not edit anyone’s writing; they just get the final say in what pieces will make it in or not. Also on the staff are two editors each for fiction and poetry, a treasurer, a senator and a social media manager. The rest of the staff is composed of readers tasked with reviewing the submissions.
The editors-in-chief initially had a difficult time getting their organization started. Once they were approved, they went forward with their original plan to publish their first issue in the spring of 2020. However, COVID-19 was a major hurdle to this process.
“It took the org a long time to create, meaning that it was a long process getting it approved to be a recognized org,” Brandwein said, “And when we finally got things off the ground, we got sent home and it was hard to adjust because it was demoralizing. Since we had been so committed to print, it felt really bad to have to go online.”
Through all of the struggles, the Review now has one issue out and is planning to release another next semester. All are welcome to submit their pieces or join the staff.
“We are always happy about new submissions,” Sammut exclaimed. “My advice is just to go for it.”
“There is nothing to lose by submitting work,” Brandwein added. “Worst comes to worst, you don’t get in, but if you try, the best-case scenario is you get to see your work in a beautiful book, [a] virtual book.”
The Review’s submissions will reopen in the coming weeks. The most up-to-date information about submission deadlines and coming events can be found on the Review’s Instagram page, @mountholyokereview.