Students at Central Oregon Community College have revived a literary tradition that hasn’t been around for nearly four decades. The Thread, featuring student poetry, prose and art is an online journal curated and edited by students in the Advanced Creative Writing: Publishing class.
Associate Professor Eileen Sather, who teaches the class, says COCC had similar journals back in the 1960s through the late 1980s with different names. “The version of the literary journal that we call The Thread started last spring, after a few years of discussion, research and sort of false starts,” she told the Source. “My colleagues and I in the Humanities Department knew we had a lot of creative talent on campus, and we really wanted to create an opportunity to showcase that talent.”
Stanley Souza, a second-year student at COCC, is in the class and part of the editorial team. “I write poetry, so I’m learning the back of house publication process, you know, learning the steps about what it takes to put out a journal.”
“My hope for the students that take this class is that they get experience with the full life cycle of a publication, and for some of them, that the experience translates to professional opportunities in the future,” Sather says.
The students who created the first Thread publication last year came up with the name, logo and mission statement which this year’s students slightly modified to read: “We believe there is strength in variety of perspectives, and revere the honest, inspired writing of the intrepid literary adventurer. Through the mediums of creative nonfiction, fiction and poetry, we provide opportunities for students to connect and inspire others with voices sui generis [“Of its own kind”]. Whether it’s a journal sewn by time or a confession crocheted at 2am, we believe the strands of our diverse voices stitch a unifying thread.”
Souza says the journal’s name represents its overall goal. “The Thread was chosen to fit the theme of different voices coming together to weave one whole. So, the thread is just like a piece of that whole.”
Souza is one of the students working on the journal. “They’re reading all the submissions and writing feedback to writers. They’re working with graphic design students at COCC to collaborate on layout and art that goes in the journal,” Sather explains.
This year the class received 34 submissions which Sather says is more than double what they received last year. The students must now decide which ones to include. Sather anticipates about 15 to 20 will be accepted. “We want to be as inclusive and encouraging as possible since we’re publishing student and emerging writers, but we also want the journal to feel somewhat thematically coherent and not get too unwieldy to read,” she says.
The Thread comes out annually at the end of spring term, with this year’s issue expected online by the end of May. Sather says the school’s Humanities budget provides around $500 per year that is mainly used for its Wordpress website and to print a limited number of hard copies. She hopes to eventually find more sustainable funding opportunities and increase the number of editions each year.
“I really hope that in the future, more people get involved with submitting to this publication,” Souza says. “And that readers who aren’t involved with the school can get access to a bunch of student talent that we have and hopefully either be inspired or get involved more directly with the school or just bolster the literature community in Bend.”
The class is holding a public reading and launch party June 5 which will also celebrate the winning selections for an annual student writing contest. “It’s a super fun and energetic way to wrap up the school year and hear creative work from different voices on campus,” Sather says.
Public Student Story/Prose Reading
Fri, June 5 12:30-2pm
Hitchcock Auditorium, COCC
2600 NW College Way, Bend
thethreadmag.org/
Free
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