I wasn’t sure what to expect when coming onboard the Toyon. Unlike most courses, the outcome of all the work the class collaborates on becomes a physical product. The literary magazine has been run almost entirely by students since 1954 and has seen a lot of change since its inception. That’s quite a legacy to uphold.
Some students arrive as previous Toyon staff or with other editorial/ publishing experience. Other students, like myself, arrive with none. Everyone is always learning however. The nature of publishing requires change and that means that from year-to-year working on each issue of the Toyon can be different. Although everyone is separated into roles and given their unique tasks in accordance to their role, there’s also work that calls for people to work together. As someone whose future goals is geared towards writing, working on the Toyon staff still gave me a peek at what the industry is like. I liked learning about the best practices to evaluate the submissions we received and navigating web development platforms. Even as a writer, one still needs to develop how to work with others within a field that will always see shifting due to being a product of culture. As far as this blog goes, I’m definitely taking a break. Winter break that is. I want to focus on writing and hopefully dig out a piece or two to move on to the submissions phase. Because my last semester is coming up next, I’ll probably only come back to blog about things of interest in the classes I take. I’m looking forward to finally graduating in half a year. For now, Happy Holidays to everyone.
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Originally, I attended a university in Hawaii as a Diplomacy Major. It was living in the busy Waikiki Strip that I was first truly exposed to a myriad of languages. It was one of the reasons I switched out a Political Science course for Japanese during my semester there. I wanted to gain the talent of snatching a third language out of the air of conversations that floated about whenever I roamed the body streets. In my attempt to pick up the Japanese language, one way to immerse myself in my studies was through the culture and to do that through reading books originally written in Japanese by Japanese authors, like Yukio Mishima or Sei Shonagon. It was the only way I could attempt to understand differing viewpoints in culture and customs without moving to another country.
For the Toyon Research Project, I discovered that there is a very skewed percentage of works translated into English from another language within the publishing industry. As language is tied to culture, identity, and other ways of thinking; that means that the published works we encounter as a whole reflect Western views. Art has always been political, but current our publishing industry pushes closed-mindedness by being largely limited to works originally written in English. The Toyon can become an example of a literary magazine that works to delve into that area of conflict. As a literary magazine that presents itself as multilingual that is one area I want to see achieve the most growth. The Toyon needs to do better about gaining submissions that fall into more languages than: English, Spanish, and Spanglish. This year, another language will be joining our publishing history. It is a good step forward, and that vein needs to continue. It would be a great idea to reach out to that particular author and ask them both how they heard about the Toyon and why they decided to submit a piece in a language we had not published before. For the Literary Translator and the Multilingual Editor to continue working together in the future and reaching out to the Centers of Academic Excellence and the World Languages Department. Ask them to announce our presence and forward our call for submissions. I’ve run across many students whom did not know the Toyon existed. The Toyon has seen some change the past few years. In the next five years those changes need to grow into their own as staples that the Toyon becomes known for. The unique covers picked among the art submissions, publishing more works in different languages, and working to gain more submissions for Environmental Justice. Advertising for the Toyon year-round is how these areas can be targeted. Improving circulation is a goal for all literary magazines with no easy answer. However, in one of this weeks readings, “The Future is a Magazine: A Roundtable on the Contemporary Literary Magazine” by a large group of authors in pages 245-268 of Paper Dreams, provides the tidbit that “Online literary magazines get much more attention from prospective readers than print magazines, (pg. 249, Paper Dreams).” There is something special about seeing your work in print and in the future we may have a website that features certain experiences you can’t get from the print version: honorable mentions, new voices to keep track of or a “Where Are They Now?” segment. The Toyon is off to a good start with beginning to archive its current and most recent runs, as well as looking back and archiving previous Toyon issues. Building a strong online presence may push up the circulation run. The Readings For This Week: **Rosser, Jill Allyn. Morgan, Speer. Roth, Marco. Hammond, Raymond. Zuniga, Adrian Todd. Horowitz, Eli. Burch, Aaron. Percesepe, Gary. Kurowski, Travis. "The Future is a Magazine: A Roundtable on the Contemporary Literary Magazine." Paper Dreams. Madison, NJ: Atticus Books, 2013. 245-268. Print. **Leibowitz, Herbert." Some Comments on the 2008 Mississippi Review Roundtable on the Contemporary Literary Magazine." Paper Dreams. Madison, NJ: Atticus Books, 2013. 269-271. Print. Additional Works Cited: Anderson 21 October 2014, Hephzibah. "Why Won't English Speakers Read Books in Translation?" BBC - Culture. Bbc.com, 21 Oct. 2014. Web. 27 Nov. 2016. <http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140909-why-so-few-books-in-translation>. |
About These Blog PostsWhile we work on the Toyon we must also blog about it. Sometimes it's through simple updates and sometimes we will be given specific assignments that we must answer. Archives
December 2016
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