The Copper Nickel

This semester I've been taking a class where I help work on our university's literary magazine, The Copper Nickel. It was started by Jake Adam York who I've talked about before here. With his death, the magazine was put on hiatus until last year when it was started up again by Wayne Miller. My class is with him and it's been really cool. I've learned a lot about literary magazines. Before this semester, I had no idea what they were. As a writer though, they're important. They're where writers start out. They're where writers can experiment with new forms. It's where editors can find new writers and sometimes contact them on their own. Hemingway started in literary magazines, along with James Joyce. So, they're kind of awesome.

The most current issue of Copper Nickel released in March

For the class, we're going through the slush pile of submissions ourselves and deciding in groups what should be passed onto the next level to be looked at. We also read articles and learn about the history of literary magazines. I thought that this being a university run literary magazine, it'd just be writers from our university submitting short stories and poems. Nope. People from around the country are submitting, most of them graduate students. A lot of them are professors at other universities. These are people who have been writing for awhile, and I'm reading their work and deciding whether or not it's good enough to be passed onto the next level. It's a crazy position to be in.

The first few weeks were hard. I'd sit there for hours with my part of the slush pile, trying to decide what was good writing, and why. Being in a class setting and in groups, we have to be able to put into words why we like a piece of writing and or don't. It's harder than it sounds, but as the semester has gone on, I've found myself getting better and better at figuring out why I like a certain piece of writing. I'm still pretty lost when it comes to poetry though, but I've got time to learn.

The newest edition of Copper Nickel was released in March and I love the cover! The back is beautiful as well, it's faded with lines from each piece on the back pieced together that makes it's own poem. As a class, we had to read through the magazine and pick our favorite three pieces, to decide who would win the prizes. This is kind of on the down low at the moment though, so shh. At this moment, I still don't know which pieces have won.

Something we've discussed is a layout for a magazine. Some do it simply in alphabetical order. Other's do all poetry, then all fiction and so on. Wayne said that for Copper Nickel, he tries to order them in a way that each piece in talking to the piece next to it. I thought that was silly when he first said it, but reading through the magazine, I saw what he was talking about. A theme that was touched on in a poem would then be in the story next to it, then the next poem would have a completely opposite view.

Through the class, we've gotten the chance to talk to a few professional editors which has been eye opening. I've always thought about editing as a possible career path if writing doesn't work out for me. Something that surprised me talking to those editors though was the fact that if you are editing full time, it kills your writing drive. You simply don't have time to do it, and it's harder to let yourself go and just write. Instead you're picking everything apart. Editing is a very time intensive career as well with a lot of hats to wear. You have to judge what's good writing, while being mindful of a business and marketing.

This class has taught me so much about the publishing world and writing. I'm so glad I'm in it, and can't wait until September when I'll get to see if some of the pieces I've fought for made their way into the final cuts and the magazine. I'm definitely going to keep reading the Copper Nickel after I'm out of school and will think about careers in literary magazines. I definitely want to be a writer though so I'll have to keep that in mind with time commitments.