Seniors Jessica Taylor and Courtney Brockwell (left to right) work on picking poems for the literary magazine. Etcetera has been displaying student work since it first started in the 1970s.
By Leah Holliday
Beginning in the 70s senior English students have been producing Etcetera. This is the literary magazine of the school created wholly by students.
Each piece that is placed into the magazine is chosen through preliminary judging. This is done anonymously so that any entry cannot be selected based on a judge’s relationship with that person.
“In addition to poetry and short stories there is photography and artwork. The editors try to find illustrations that fit with the literary pieces,” English teacher Beth Andersen said.
Currently, working hard towards perfection, senior Courtney Brockwell gives her best to make Etcetera the best it can be.
“[As an editor] I go through the work by choosing which pieces go on the web and which ones get printed, selecting the layout, and collecting stuff and bringing it together,” Brockwell said.
Out of the first group of selected submissions the group is narrowed again. The final pieces are then chosen to go in the print magazine or online.
“The staff decides on criteria for each entry and decides on the best one,” Beth Andersen said.
After final selections have been made, the editors will choose the way they want to display the work in the magazine. This will begin for the 2012 edition during the week of Feb. 6th.
After all of this work has been completed the final product will be published. The whole process has been done much more rapidly than in previous years. The date of publication is estimated for the end of February compared to the May date of previous years.
“For many years the magazine was printed at the high school, but recently it has begun to be sent out to a printer for better quality. Now there is an online section in addition to the print magazine,” Andersen said.
Go to https://trnwired.org/etc to view online pieces submitted for the literary magazine. Or buy a copy for $0.50 from English teacher and newspaper advisor Chris Waugaman in room A6.
Chloe Alexander • Mar 29, 2012 at 8:58 pm
I am glad that Etcetera was promoted by TRN, because everyone at the high school should at least flip through it. All sorts of scholastic media are important in bringing the school community together, and Etcetera is one of them. I purchased one and enjoyed how well pictures and poems went together, even if those people did not even know each other.
Nelson Leary • Mar 27, 2012 at 10:20 am
Very interesting to learn the entire process in making the Etcetera magazine, it brings some insight into how pieces are choosen. The only thing that would have added to the article would be to included the web link to the online version, because what is the point of mentioning one if people are not given the site to see it.
Tyler Thompson • Mar 27, 2012 at 9:22 am
The literary magazine is a good way for students to get their works out there. The magazine is always high quality in my opinion at least the ones that I have bought while at the high school. The pairing of artworks and photos with literary works that match them is nice but I fell that sometimes too much emphasis is placed on just matching them. There is the assorted section at the end of the magazine for unpaired works but that is like saying they are not as important. The paired works is nice and makes the magazine better but a bigger assorted section may be a nice addition. I am glad to see that the news covers this so maybe it gets out to more people so that it may be more widely purchased.
Jordan Thompson • Mar 25, 2012 at 1:32 pm
I was glad to see an article written about the hard work implemented by the students on the Etcetera staff because their first publication just recently came out and I was highly impressed with the layout design and content displayed within the magazine. Also, the creativity portrayed by the students was encouraging to read and see about for I was amazed at some of the talent our student body has.
Matthew Schneck • Mar 18, 2012 at 6:31 pm
It is good to see that the school news is bringing forth events within the school that are frequently over looked. So often, extracurricular activities such as sports make the headlines while other events are left in the dark. The fact that the newspaper is taking the time to recognize the fine arts side of students is great. It would, however, be great to see some sort of preview of what is going to be in the literary magazine so that students could have something to look forward to.
Luke Humphries • Feb 26, 2012 at 10:23 pm
This is a very good article, because it is something all of the students need to know about. Hopefully it helps everyone know about this magazine so that people actually do pick up copies of it when it is published, because I’m sure all of the students that are contributing to it want people to check out their artwork! It should be a really good collection, and it should definitely worth looking at.
Conner Stevenson • Feb 22, 2012 at 8:15 pm
I am really glad that this was covered by our news staff. These students have been hard at work to produce the best magian possible for the school. They have really put a lot of time into working on it. They stay after quite a bit from what I’ve seen and the issue should at least be appreciated for that alone. In addition, the magazine seems to have a lot to offer this year both in art and writing. There have been a ton of entries too so this will definitely make for a production worth taking the time to read.